


For the Summer

by CoraRochester, fadefilter, steebadore



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Carpenter Steve Rogers, Childhood Sweethearts, Exes to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling in Love (again), First Time, M/M, Pining, Rich Bucky Barnes, Summer Romance, dicks out in the ADK, gratuitous mention of Steve's tits, underage characters having sex with each other while underage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:28:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 44,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27780796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoraRochester/pseuds/CoraRochester, https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadefilter/pseuds/fadefilter, https://archiveofourown.org/users/steebadore/pseuds/steebadore
Summary: Fifteen years ago, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes had been two teenagers in love, spending sweltering summers in Eagle Inlet, Steve's sleepy lakeside hometown way up in the Adirondacks. Sure, Bucky's rich family only came up in summertime, but they were off to college soon and they'd be together forever, right?Not quite.These days, Bucky's back in town for the summer and it turns out, some hurts—and firsts—are hard to get over....There was something venomous and fiery chasing itself through Steve’s veins, choking the life out of his common sense. He put a hand on Bucky’s waist, small and tight, shifting with Bucky’s quick breathing and he squeezed, trying to ground himself. It didn’t work.There was hardly any space left between them. Bucky’s hair brushed the tip of his nose. It was citrus and sweat and like a gut punch of memory. “We could see if I’m any better now,” Steve said. “I’ve had a little more practice since then.”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 269
Kudos: 541
Collections: Not Another Stucky Big Bang 2020





	1. each and every lesson, they were hard

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Welcome to our NASBB2020 fic! This is an idea dreamed up by cora & steeb back in early 2019 in a random chat, inspired by the idea of a sad bearded Nomad-esque Steve Rogers, pining away by the waterfront. By which we mean to say, we saw pictures of Chris Evans in _Red Sea Diving Resort_ and promptly began thinking about thick Steve and fashion Bucky. Pure hubris got us to sign up for our own bang, and we were promptly rewarded by getting matched up with fadefilter, who is not only an incredible artist, but an inspiration in her own right. We are so incredibly grateful for her beautiful work. No one else could've so perfectly captured the pining and love she brought to life here in living color.
> 
> For those keeping track at home, the Steve chapters were written by Cora, and the Bucky chapters were written by Steeb. It was our first time co-writing something properly, and you know what? It's been a blast, probably because we're the same three kinks in a trench coat.
> 
> Thank you to our fellow mods (what a ride this has been!) and thank you to everyone who has been so encouraging about our story as we eked it out over this... very eventful 2020. 
> 
> **Note regarding the Underage Warning:** In the first chapter of this fic, Steve and Bucky are 17 and 18 respectively and have known each other since they were very young. They engage in consensual underage sex and it is described within the story. Mentions of consensual underage sex are made, though not descriptively, in the rest of the story.
> 
> We will be updating this story on Tuesdays and Thursdays through the end of the bang, with the last chapter going live on December 17th. We hope you like it!

Bucky's hand was burning a hole through Steve's thigh, distracting and so hot he could feel the sweat sticking them together. Bucky's thumb would rub over the knob of his knee, ticking over hair, and it was all Steve could do to keep driving down the twilight-dark dirt road instead of just pulling over into the trees and kissing Bucky like he wanted to.

“Oh,” Bucky said, squeezing Steve’s knee with his hot, damp hand and peeking out the window at the big boulder, wider around than Steve’s arms could reach and up to his shoulder, that lived at the side of the road maybe half a mile from the turn off into the cove. “We’re close.”

They'd spent about all day in town, shuffling papers at the DMV, Bucky slurping loudly from an oversized iced coffee while Steve filled in the cramped little forms and snuck a few looks at Bucky's legs. His shorts were tighter and shorter than what you usually saw on a guy this far north; his clothes were all bright and fashionable and so pretty you could tell just by looking at him that Bucky was a tourist, the kind to drive up the I-87 Northway and hang out lakeside all summer long before slipping back downstate on the tail end of summer.

There, in the tiny DMV, where everyone knew the name Rogers, Steve was just another one of them, with a motor-oil stained t-shirt and beat up sneakers, sun streaked hair and his mother’s face. While Steve set about registering his truck—a ‘97 Ford—the woman at the counter asked about his mother and cracked her gum, looking on with barely concealed annoyance as Bucky leaned into his side, nosy and looking every inch like the beautiful rich asshole he was. The look on her face had set off a flush of annoyed embarrassment in Steve, and he’d wanted to hold Bucky’s hand but he wasn’t quite sure if it was right or safe or even what Bucky wanted, so he hadn’t.

But here, with the sun going down, the trees thick overhead, and alone at the far edge of the lake, it was different. It was Bucky singing along quietly, their arms sticky and close, the air pouring in through the windows to cool them down. It was just the sweet stink of cheap deodorant and that expensive cologne Bucky wore, the kind that came in a glass bottle and tickled Steve’s nose when he pressed his face into Bucky’s shoulder as they made out on the dock after sundown.

Steve almost missed the turnoff because Bucky’s hand seemed higher up on his thigh than it had been just a minute ago, but he somehow managed a quick right down the narrow path that led to the water. They parked at the turnaround, a few minutes’ walk from the shore, and Steve felt all his breath leave him in a shaky sigh as he cut the engine and killed the headlights.

Bucky leaned over the console and reached into the back of the cab, where he’d stashed their towels and his drawstring backpack. His torso twisted neatly against Steve’s arm, and Bucky laughed, falling back into his seat, as Steve pinched his belly.

“Come on,” Steve said, leaning across the console to steal a kiss. “Let’s go.”

The cove was a broad curve of tiny pebbles and rocky sand, fringed on all sides by trees that clung to the edges of the lake, roots dipping into the water. And it was quiet out here, especially at this time of evening, when the boats started to clear the lake and the stars were peeping out. This side of the shore barely had any homes—really just Steve’s mother’s house, which butted up against an abandoned Girl Scout camp the Odinsons owned and ignored. It was a long stretch of overgrown property, well out of the way of all the yacht clubs and tourist traps; the unused property had been perfect for them when they’d been eight, thirteen, fifteen, with nothing better to do than wander around the woods. It was even more perfect now that they were seventeen and eighteen and wanted privacy so bad Steve thought he’d die from it.

It was here, two summers ago, when Bucky was sixteen and Steve was fifteen, that Bucky had leaned forward and mashed their faces together. It had been Steve’s first kiss, tasting like popsicles and sunscreen. Bucky had pulled away, looking scared, and it only took a single breathless instant for Steve to lean back in and kiss him, even sweeter this time. A couple hours later, the Barneses were heading out of town for the next ten months.

And then, last summer had been spent kissing any chance they could get, making out on the dock after the sun went down, furtively jerking each other off when they could get away with it. Steve knew that after that—Bucky’s senior year at an NYC private school, and Steve’s junior year at a regular old public school an hour’s bus ride away—Bucky had kissed some other guys, and probably even a little more than that.

But when Bucky was back in town, it was like none of that mattered.

They unrolled their towels close enough to really hear the water tapping at the shore, and when Steve lay back, Bucky went with him, curling into his side. Over the last two summers, after spending a lifetime barely clearing Bucky’s shoulder, Steve had suddenly gained a handful of inches on him. He was taller now, wider across the shoulders, and it made him feel hot, warm from his ears down to his belly, when Bucky’s smaller body fit into his, his dark hair silky against Steve’s shoulder and bare toes sandy against his calf. He felt big, almost clumsily huge, when his hand stroked down from the wing of one narrow shoulder to an even narrower waist, cotton tank top warm and soft under his palm.

The tip of Bucky’s nose nudged at Steve’s neck, and a warm hand slipped up under Steve’s shirt to drift over his belly, too hot to stay in one place for long. Instead it was just loop after loop, touches circling up towards his sternum and back down again, all the way down to the button on Steve’s shorts. It was almost teasing, except for the way that Bucky was still always so shy about all this, blushing through the whole summer and now hesitating, fingers half an inch from Steve’s cock.

It made Steve hurt, almost like a sunburn or a pulled muscle, so he took Bucky’s hand under his, and guided it slowly downwards, slow and gentle so Bucky could pull away if he wanted. He put Bucky’s hand down over his dick, pressing down through his shorts and rubbing a little, just rough and just enough to take the edge off.

Their faces were close, mouths not quite touching. Bucky’s blue-grey eyes were like storm clouds, dark and thunderously gorgeous. A red blush smeared over his cheeks, lips split on a sigh and a little shiny with mostly kissed-away chapstick. Steve squeezed his hand and under that, Bucky’s hand squeezed his dick. “Is this okay?” he asked, feeling hoarse.

Bucky swallowed hard and Steve could see the not quite smooth motion of his throat as it worked. “Yeah,” Bucky whispered, really quiet and loud all at once. “It’s okay.”

Steve wanted to ask _are you sure?_ , but then Bucky was kissing him, twisting a little closer on the towel and tipping their bodies more fully together. It was the hungry kind of kiss, open-mouthed, wet and sloppy, punctuated by the hard catch of breath and the occasional press of teeth. Any measure of grace or finesse was too much to ask for when they were this hungry.

In the fumbling shift of their bodies as they kissed and kissed and kissed, Bucky moved his hand away to pull Steve closer by the sides of his face—but then they were dovetailing together, hips pressing together in a rough, erratic grind that was just short of enough. It made Steve think of swimming, of sinking down as low as he could for as long as he could before rushing towards the light, breaking the surface and gasping for air, fingers clutching at the waves. Only now his hands were on Bucky’s narrow hips, inching further down on his ass, soft body dimpling under the pressure of Steve’s grip.

“I want,” Bucky gasped, fingers tugging at the hair at the back of Steve’s head. They kissed again, hungry and breathless. “I want to do something.”

It took a long moment to stop touching and kissing, to drag his mouth away from the sharp corner of Bucky’s jaw.

“What?” Steve asked dumbly, chasing the smell of sweat and citrus on Bucky’s neck.

Bucky didn’t say anything, but disentangled a little, twisting his upper body like a corkscrew and dragging his bag over. Steve busied himself petting at the exposed skin of Bucky’s waist, waiting while Bucky rooted around in his bag. There was a little line of dark hair that ran from under Bucky’s belly button down into his shorts, silky, ticklish, and when Bucky’s belly tensed under his touch, it was a distraction all over again.

And then Bucky’s body was moving again, this time so he could lay on his back, and Steve kept touching Bucky’s belly even as he looked up, only going still when he saw what Bucky had in his hands.

Lube in a plastic bottle, plastic safety seal still wrapped around the cap.

He looked at Bucky’s face, hesitant and flushed, red marks on his neck and mouth like a burst of ripe cherry but sweeter. That lower lip trembled a little when Bucky asked, in a halting rush, “Do you wanna fuck me?” The _fuck me_ came out as a single word, quieter than the rest, but it echoed in Steve’s suddenly vacant head.

They’d never gone that far before. Hadn’t even really talked about it. Blowjobs, handjobs, coming in their underwear when they made out. Tentative fingers skating towards all the hidden places of their bodies, but never quite pressing beyond that, no matter how badly they were shaking and breathing heavily. Bucky was the only person Steve had ever been with, but he knew that Bucky had done a little with other boys down in the city, even if he didn’t like to think about it. But not… not _this_.

“Uh,” he said, feeling dizzy, like he’d been out in the sun all day with nothing to drink. His tongue felt fat and clumsy in his mouth, but he somehow managed to choke out a single, “Yeah.”

There was a pause, a smothering humidity hanging in the air between them, and then Bucky shifted a little on his back, not quite doing anything, and then he said, “Um. Okay.” The tips of Bucky’s ears were red and his smile was helpless and lopsided on his pretty face, and Steve felt like he was probably doing the same, giddy and shaky in a way that he couldn’t even begin to think about.

“Can I?” Steve asked, pushing a hand up Bucky’s side and pushing his shirt up with it. Bucky’s little hum of agreement was so soft and small that Steve had to lean forward to kiss him, cupping the back of Bucky’s head and digging into all that silky thick hair, the glorious luxury of Bucky’s honey sweet mouth and body.

After that, it was just breathless kissing and roaming hands, each shirt tugged off in distracted stages, rucked up and tossed away before coming back for more kisses and distracted touching. Bucky’s fingers dug into the raw sunburn across his shoulders, and Steve’s hands tightened around Bucky’s bare waist, squeezing, the tips of his fingers dipping into the groove of Bucky’s spine.

“Can I?” Steve asked, hand on Bucky’s waistband.

“You too, though.”

Through the tangle of their arms, they got each other unzipped and unbuttoned, the obscene bulges of their cocks tenting their underwear through the vees of their open flies. It wasn’t exactly new—they’d stripped down to almost nothing out here before, certain of their privacy—but it _was_ new, knowing that there was still so much more yet to come.

It was some sort of unspoken agreement, but they got Steve’s shorts and underwear off first, yanking them down to his knees before kicking them down to the foot of the towel and into the sand. He’d never felt more bare, with his cock hard and sticking out away from his body, thighs and arms prickling with goosebumps.

“Here,” Bucky said, shifting onto his back and lifting his hips up. “Help me get these off.”

There was a fire dancing in Steve’s belly, burning warmth spreading all the way up his body. He was barely breathing as he knelt between Bucky’s ankles, shaky fingers curling under Bucky’s waistband. He tugged in little inches at first, tanned skin getting lighter at Bucky’s hips, the short dark hair a little thicker. He was careful when he pulled them down over Bucky’s cock, over the delicate fullness of Bucky’s balls on his thick, pale thighs. The dark hair on Bucky’s calves tickled Steve’s knuckles, and then Bucky was naked, their clothes scattered to the sand.

It was kind of heartstopping, and Steve had to be careful when he skimmed his hands down the outside of Bucky’s thighs, where Bucky’s skin was plush and silky, easy to grab and squeeze, to yank Bucky closer. Bucky’s cock lay low on his belly, short and chubby, the head gone dark, pre-come tagging his soft little belly. And then below, his balls, the crease of Bucky’s ass, shadows and wants Steve couldn’t even begin to name.

Steve groped for the lube, turning it over in his hand as he looked down at Bucky’s body. “Should— Do you want me to?”

Bucky bit his lip; his breath was coming a little faster now. “Um. Kiss me first?” he said.

Steve bent down, and it didn’t matter that there was a rock digging into his knee, because kissing this way was unlike anything else. He’d always thought they’d fit together perfectly, but it was nothing compared to this, with Bucky’s cock hot against his, knees digging into his hips and hands sweeping down his back in an unbroken line.

“Good?” Steve asked when they were both too breathless to kiss any longer.

“Good,” Bucky agreed, smiling, eyes crinkling softly around the corners.

Steve felt keyed up, anxious in a way that made him breathe deep and fast, trying to find any thread of calm he could and _tug_. His fingers felt stiff as he picked the plastic safety wrap from the lube cap. He looked down at Bucky, and wanted more than he could even put into words.

Maybe it was just how warm the night was, but the lube was cold on his fingers, thick and silky when he rubbed them together.

“Tell me if you don’t like it,” Steve said, hesitating.

“I like it,” Bucky said. “I’ll tell you. Just… slow, you know?”

The skin between Bucky’s thighs was hot and soft, tiny little hairs tickling his fingertips, and he stroked carefully, a little enraptured at the sight of his fingers disappearing. He took his time pressing downwards, but he was helplessly dragged there, wet fingers pressed searchingly to the tight furl of Bucky’s hole. He was amazed at the muscular throb of it, twitching as Steve rubbed over it, slicking it all up.

“Put a little more on your fingers,” Bucky said, fists balled up tight. “And then—inside.”

It was maybe too much lube, but it felt good when Steve pressed a single fingertip in, sliding right inside and amazed at the way Bucky’s body just barely parted for him. He wiggled his finger a little further in, squeezing through the tightness and marveling all the softness he found. He played at discovery, pressing in and out in halting motions, torn between looking at Bucky’s shy face tipped towards his shoulder, and the pink, wet hole locked up tight around him.

There was the water on the shore and Bucky’s slow, barely controlled breathing, and Steve tried to find a rhythm, fingering Bucky slowly and searchingly, watching for pain or pleasure or anything in between, anything that could tell him exactly what to do, how to make this perfect. There were moments he thought that maybe he nudged up against _something_ —he knew about the prostate, in theory—but it was all so overwhelming he never really knew for sure what he’d done or how to do it again.

Steve felt like he had a full-blown fever by the time he felt sure Bucky’s body had loosened up around his finger.

“More?” Steve asked, running his free hand up Bucky’s belly, the skin warm and soft and a little sweaty.

He waited until Bucky looked right at him, face gone all sunburn-red and splotchy. Bucky bit his lip, hips wiggling. “Um, yeah,” he finally said. “More.”

More meant more lube and a tighter clench gripping him as Steve inched two fingertips in, more patience as Steve watched Bucky’s face. The fat lower lip all pinched and trembling, dark brows pulled together in something like concentration, like there was something inside of Bucky that needed to be puzzled through, figured out and put to right. His head was tipped back and to the side, and his neck was long, all marble-like in the rising night. His shoulders were square but narrow, and Steve could see the kiss of a hundred sun-freckles burnt into his shoulders, all the hours spent on the boats, on the docks, racing down country roads on their bikes until it was too dark for them to see, too dark for the sun to lay its hands on them.

It took him a long time to get those two fingers notched all the way in. By the time he’d done it, his thumb had somehow gotten all pressed up behind Bucky’s balls, and the skin there was warm and puffy, silky because it was all drenched in lube. It was easy to stroke over that spot, the place where all sorts of things connected in tender, delicate ways. It was a whole new world of pride he uncovered when just that little touch made Bucky’s thigh jump, his silky hole cinching up tight before relaxing around the bulge of Steve’s knuckles.

“You’re beautiful,” Steve said, and he knew it sounded dumb but he had to say it anyway.

Bucky twisted a little bit until his hand found Steve’s knee, and he squeezed, looking up at Steve through the thick dark fringe of his eyelashes, shadows casting a lovely grey light over his face, storm clouds blooming over blue skies. “So are you,” he murmured.

Steve laughed, and Bucky did too, and it was a little fracture in all that intensity, the hoarse sound of their laughter low but somehow unlocking whatever worry was knotted up tightly in Steve’s chest. When he moved his fingers inside of Bucky’s body again, even that was easier, too, like they’d both figured something out. Fingering Bucky open took on a soft-focus concentration, an amazement and wonder even as he watched Bucky relax, felt it happen right around his fingers.

Pulling his dry hand from Bucky’s belly, where he’d braced it, Steve jacked his cock a could times, going from mostly hard to achingly hard in half a second, just from thinking about fucking into the warm, tight place he’d made inside of Bucky’s body. “You think I could…?” Steve asked, trying that trick where he rubbed up against the hot skin behind Bucky’s balls. “Or?”

Bucky squeezed up tight around him and relaxed again. “Um, yeah. I want to.”

That meant more lube, squeezed in a puddle into his palm and all over his dick, a whole sticky mess of a process that made Steve feel painfully obvious in his inexperience. Steve jacked himself a little frantically while Bucky laid out beneath him all perfect and beautiful, doing nothing but breathing and easily stroking his cock, and still making Steve feel cross-eyed, bees swarming in his belly. Inching forward, he let his cock nudge up between Bucky’s thighs, smearing lube the whole way, the wet dark hair tickling the tip of his dick the whole time. He put his free hand on Bucky’s hip, though whether it was to steady Bucky or himself, he couldn’t tell.

“Um,” Steve said, thumb at the base of his cock while the tip was right up against Bucky’s taint, wet skin on wet skin. “Condom?” he asked.

“I haven’t with anyone else…” Bucky said.

Steve’s mouth was dry. “Me either.”

“I want to try it. With you.” Bucky’s black eyes were unblinking.

“Yeah,” Steve agreed, licking his lips. “With you.”

Steve took one ragged inhale and held his breath. The tip of his dick caught on the slight openness of Bucky hole, and he pressed forward in a rabbity little rush. The tentative little gape all but sealed up tight around the flared head of Steve’s cock as he sank inwards in a sudden rush. It was so fucking tight it hurt, squeezing Steve’s cock up so hard he could practically feel it in his balls, an electric-white heat between his thighs, shooting sparks up into his belly, his throat.

It was like a great big spasm rocked through Steve, and he couldn’t help but fuck in another vise-tight inch, groaning. He let go of his cock and instead anchored himself by wrapping his hands around Bucky’s small hips and squeezing. He could hear his breath, ragged and winded, and under that, Bucky’s, quiet and small, fast and high-pitched. It was the only thing that kept him motionless.

He looked at Bucky’s cock on his belly, still hard and wet at the tip, and the hand Bucky had wrapped around Steve’s forearm, squeezing so hard Steve thought it might bruise. “Does it… hurt?” he asked.

“No, I…” Bucky sucked in air, his belly going concave for a second. “It’s a lot, Steve, holy— _jesus_ , it feels big.”

There was a smug fullness rising up inside of Steve at those words, and he smiled down at Bucky, Bucky who had some of Steve’s dick stuffed up inside of him for the first time, fire hot and silky wet. “You feel so good… Tight,” he said, a bashful confession in return.

There wasn’t much to do but keep moving forward, and it turned out that took a lot of stubborn patience on Steve’s part. Each tiny little shove and thrust worked him deeper inside of Bucky’s body, where it was all blinding tightness that just sucked him further in. And he had to be careful, with his eyes fixed on Bucky’s face, to watch the kiss-damp split of his pink mouth as he gasped and sighed and bit his lip with each new movement.

But all too soon, he was inside Bucky as far as he could go, their bodies all sealed together and Bucky’s soft thighs spread unbelievably wide, muscles jumping as they hitched up around either side of Steve’s hips.

“You good?” Steve asked, thumbing the plush sweetness of Bucky’s hips.

Bucky didn’t say anything at first, just swallowed and nodded, running his hands up from Steve’s forearms to his biceps, climbing up to his shoulders. “It feels—” there was a small laugh, but it was breathless, incredulous, and Steve felt the shock of it, the ripple of Bucky’s body around his cock. “I don’t know, I don’t… Talk to me. Kiss me.”

In an instant, he was sinking down on his forearms, letting his nose nudge up against Bucky’s cheek, the both of them breathing heavily as they turned to look at each other up close, almost kissing. Falling down onto his arms made Steve’s cock move inside of Bucky’s body, slipping loose a few inches. It was too much stimulation to take so he shoved his hips forward and made Bucky kiss him to distraction so he didn’t come after a sad handful of thrusts. It was an awkward angle, and Steve could feel Bucky wiggling beneath him, tipping up the lean cradle of his hips and fitting his body to Steve’s.

“I...“ Steve said, tucking his face into Bucky’s shoulder and thrusting a little, the motion jerky because he was afraid of too much, too quickly, “I kinda always hoped it’d be with you.”

When Bucky kissed the side of Steve’s neck, it was open-mouthed and wet, inelegant and blistering, and Steve shuddered under the weight of how it all made him feel. When Bucky whispered back, “Me, too,” it was the smallest sound, like being the only person out on the lake as the sun rose, body small against the glassy, unbroken water.

A strange gravity found them, a pressure and release all at once. Steve moved slowly inside of Bucky’s body, and couldn’t think about anything but the way it felt, the squeeze and the silk of it, the way it was like they shared a heartbeat when Steve was as deep as he could go, sinking home. The sound of it was filthy and liquid, louder than Steve had ever imagined it could be, all that satiny wetness that he worked into Bucky’s body, a place that was all Steve’s, now.

“F—fuck, I’m gonna come,” Steve said, because it was true, because Bucky was everything he’d wanted since he was thirteen and jerking off to the thought of another cock, another boy’s body next to his.

Bucky’s hand slipped between their bodies, and Steve could feel Bucky’s knuckles dancing against his belly as Bucky jerked himself off. They were both moving too fast, sloppy, and the desperation was unimaginably _more_ than anything else they’d ever done, ever tried out here at the cove. There was tension in Bucky’s body, the grip of an elbow hooked around Steve’s neck and the strength in the legs hiked up high by Steve’s ribs. Tucked up like he was, Bucky seemed even smaller, fragile and precious, a thought that made Steve’s whole body pull together, shocked by a live wire.

Everything had turned to a flooding rush. Steve could hear himself grunting, low and animal, into Bucky’s slight shoulder; in comparison, Bucky was all soft whines, breathy little catches that Steve could feel vibrating against his throat. There was barely enough time to note the sweet way Bucky was rocking into each crude thrust, the way Steve’s balls slapped up against Bucky’s soft ass—

Coming was a gush and shudder of sensation, rushing up from his balls, from deep inside his body; Steve was making a mess of Bucky’s insides, filling him up, and no one else ever had—

Bucky cried out, sharp and high, and there was a brutal tightness locking up around Steve's sensitive cock, a burst of hot, thick come on his belly between them, the whole world reeling, bright and hazy… _new_.

"Oh my god," Bucky whispered into Steve's mouth, a raspy sound that Steve breathed in before kissing Bucky. They were both breathless, and Steve felt shivery hot, loose but overwhelmed in the aftermath, unable to figure out how to unspool his body from Bucky's and not certain why he'd ever want to pull out of that silky-hot sleeve.

Of course, it turned out Steve had no choice: sooner or later, he felt the rocks under his knees and palms, the way Bucky was crushed under him and breathing heavy, the way that his cock was getting soft inside the warmth of Bucky’s body.

Bucky grimaced when Steve slipped loose with a wet sound, his freckles standing out on his red, flushed face; his nose scrunched up with something like the embarrassment Steve was feeling. It was an awkward rush that had peaked, and now they had to muddle through the fuzzy aftermath.

“Does it hurt?” Steve asked, leaning back on his legs and letting his eyes drift down Bucky’s body. He swallowed hard when he saw the way Bucky’s body had changed, hole swollen and pink where it had been worked open. Steve could see his come on Bucky’s skin.

“Not really,” Bucky said, easily and quietly, breath coming more regularly now.

Steve wiped away the come all over Bucky's stomach with a beach towel, but it was barely cleaned up before Bucky was yanking him back down beside him. "We'll wash off in the water later," Bucky said, wiggling until he was pressed to Steve's side. "Lay down with me."

They were sweaty and naked, and when they curled up together on their towels, it was with a deep sigh, that lingering rush of adrenaline and excitement fizzling inside of Steve from head to toe. He was sleepy, loose and pleased, and only the promise of the temperature dropping kept him from falling asleep. The black flies and mosquitoes would be out in full force soon, but he liked the feeling of laying here, naked, skin to skin, and it raised a giddy circle of thoughts in his head: Bucky, like this with him through college, through all the years after when they came back up here and got a place of their own.

“Only a few more weeks of summer,” Steve commented, forcing a sort of bravado on like a jacket, like it didn’t gut him to watch Bucky leave him here alone, without his best friend. He forced himself to look away from the lovely soft curves and emerging angles of Bucky’s face, the adult lines of him apparent at odd angles and different lights. Instead, he watched himself smooth his hand up and down Bucky’s body, skimming from ribs to hips. Bucky had gotten sun all summer long, but under Steve’s work-tanned hand, he looked pale. “Then you’re off to Harvard.”

Hot fingers traced over the back of Steve’s hand where he was rubbing little circles a few inches above Bucky’s soft cock, all pale pink against darker body hair.

“Senior year for you,” Bucky said. “Then what? Have you decided anything?”

Steve had been thinking, and on nights when Bucky was busy with his family, or the weather had been too shitty for them to meet on their bikes, he’d sat at the little computer in the living room and carefully pick-typed his way through internet searches, typing in his searches and pressing enter, writing down little notes in the back half of last year’s English notebook, pro/con lists and wishlists spilling into each other.

“I was thinking RISD,” he admitted. The only other person he’d told was Sarah, who’d kissed his hair and hugged him, and told him she knew he’d get in. “It’s my dream school, anyway.”

“Rhode Island School of Design?” Bucky asked. “Holy shit, that’d be so cool. And, uh, you wouldn’t be that far from me in Massachusetts.”

“Um, like an hour, I think.”

Bucky turned towards Steve, and they wound up on their sides, knees bumping together and foreheads tipped close. Bucky’s hairline was warm and a little sweaty when he pillowed it on Steve’s inner arm, close up to his shoulder. “We could see each other all the time.”

The way Bucky said it, so quiet but _sure_ , like it was easy to fit themselves together in the coming years, made some sort of sun-warmth grow in Steve’s chest, heat radiating out from between his ribs. It was like a white light, the peak of a cloudless afternoon, and Steve let that feeling rush through him into a kiss. He cradled the back of Bucky’s head and breathed harder the longer they kept kissing, unable to stop, mouths slick and less clumsy now than they had been at the start of the summer.

“I love you,” Steve finally said, because it was true and had been for years, because it was too big a feeling to keep inside for another summer.

Bucky, when he smiled, looked younger and older all at once, memories layered under all of Steve’s dreams for college and summers yet to come—history, hope, and promise, all of it so big Steve could barely imagine it.

* * *

_… it’s even harder than I thought it’d be. I got a C on my economics midterm, and I’ve basically felt sick ever since. My dad was really upset when I told him and he said something about getting me an internship, which hasn’t made me feel any better..._

Steve scrolled through the email from Bucky slowly, one of only a handful he’d received since September. Bucky was hard to get ahold of these days, but reading these emails—rambling, scattered, somehow sad—Steve didn’t really feel mad, or sad. It was just like a big hole of loneliness inside of him, not much feeling but the wind going right through him.

It was almost December now, and snow had been falling thick up here in Eagle Inlet for a couple weeks now, melting away less and less and piling up high on the sides of their driveway. The summer lakeside tourists had left enmasse after Labor Day; the leaf chasers, riding ski lifts up into the mountains just to watch the foliage burn up to red, orange and yellow, had all gone; now it was just a matter of time before the skiers and snowmobilers were up here in full force, clogging the bars and trails with their expensive gear.

Steve had long gotten used to how lonely he felt up here in the off seasons. But never before had it felt like this, with Bucky impossibly far away and hard to reach, despite… despite _everything_ that had happened over the summer. He’d thought, somehow, that it had been a turning point.

But still, Steve pecked out a reply, one letter at a time, giving Bucky a little update on his college applications and scholarship essays, some pieces he was putting into his portfolio. He wished Bucky good luck with finals and asked about how he was feeling, and then… he ran out of things to say.

“Hey, don’t stay up too late, now,” Sarah said, walking by the desk in their living room. “School tomorrow, don’t forget. I’ve got that doctor’s appointment, so you’re on your own for dinner.”

Steve frowned. “What doctor?”

“Just a check up, worrywart. How’s Bucky doing?”

Shrugging and drumming his fingers on the desktop, Steve just said, “I don’t know. Seems like classes are really hard there. He’s busy all the time.” He glanced over at his mother and saw that familiarly inscrutable mom-look on her tired face, that knowing half-smile and her focused, sharp blue eyes that saw everything. He’d never been able to hide a thing from her, up to and including how much he’d fallen in love with Bucky over the last few years.

“I know it hurts, sweetheart,” she said. “A year makes a big difference at this age, no matter how much you care about each other.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Steve said, going willingly when she put him in a headlock and kissed the top of his head.

“Listen to me,” she said, giving him a last shake. “I’m old and wise. It’ll all work out the way it was meant to.”

As his mother walked down the hall to bed, Steve turned back to the computer and studied the blinking cursor. His index fingers hovered over the keys.

Finally, he sighed. _Love, Steve_ , he typed, pressed send, and went to bed.

* * *

There was a fifteen dollar box fan in the window at the marina, but by the tail end of the June, it was barely keeping up with pushing the humid air around behind the register. In the mornings Steve would stock, and at night he’d clean, but between noon and six, he tried to move as little as possible. He’d sit behind the register in a Rogers’ Marina shirt, sleeves long since ripped off, and do as little as possible between pumping gas and selling overpriced ice cream and soda to kids from the beach.

It was a cloudless day, and just out the window, Steve could see a restored classic wooden boat, bobbing away at a nearby dock, tiny intricate layers of wood gleaming with a fresh layer of lacquer. It had a long covered bow, trimmed with black wood and chrome cleats, a gently rounded body that widened out to a low, elegant stern. Someday, he wanted to restore one of his own, but in the meantime, he’d settle for drawing it, maybe making something large enough to put on the walls here, like his painting of the fall leaves up at Gore Mountain his mother had on display.

He wasn’t sure when the owner would be back, so he worked quickly, making light lines on the gray pages of his sketchbook, thinking idly about the pastels he’d gotten last time they’d gone into town and wondering about white space. Or maybe oils, he had the perfect brown somewhere, and he could blend something up for the murky green of the shallow water…

The door opened and the bell jangled, and Steve was so focused he almost scratched a thick line right through the middle of the page. Instead, he tossed his pencil aside, looked up with a pasted on smile, and saw Bucky’s father wander up the aisle with a plastic gas can.

“Hey, kid,” George Barnes said. “Looking to get thirty bucks of gas.”

Steve swallowed hard, straightening up and taking the shiny credit card offered to him. “Sure thing, Mr. Barnes.”

“Oh, you’re one of James’ friends, aren’t you?”

There was that involuntary curl of anger inside Steve’s belly—Bucky hated his first name for starters, and the fact that after more than ten years, Bucky’s father still couldn’t remember Steve, let alone his name.

“Steve Rogers,” Steve said, sliding the receipt and a pen across the counter.

“Right, right,” Mr. Barnes muttered as he scribbled out a jagged line and left everything on his side of the counter.

Steve grabbed the can and started to head for the door. The pump was out by the dock of the marina, and Mr. Barnes followed him out the door, flipping on a pair of expensive sunglasses as they walked out over the water.

“You off to college yet, then, kid?” Mr. Barnes asked as he watched Steve kneel down to fit the nozzle into the gas can.

The numbers on the ancient gas pumped ticked away so slowly Steve thought he’d pass out from a sun stroke before they were anywhere close to thirty dollars’ worth. “I was accepted at RISD, early admission. But I’m, uh, I’m going to defer for a year. Mom needs the help, so.”

“Well, make sure you go. Longer you wait, the harder it is, they say.”

Steve just nodded tightly. Seventeen dollars. He looked over the water, the channel full of boats heading in and out of the lake.

“So, uh, is Bucky up at the house? I haven’t heard from him for a while.” Since March, Steve thought. When Bucky had emailed him a quick thanks for the birthday wishes.

Bucky hadn’t replied at all when Steve emailed him about Sarah and how down he'd been feeling about all her open-ended doctors' appointments. About deferring for a year even though Sarah told him not to. About graduating from high school and nothing looking like he thought it would last summer.

“Staying in the city. My friend Bill’s got him and his girlfriend in a very competitive internship program. The boy needs some focus, get networking. He’s got a lot to learn about the business.”

The word _girlfriend_ clicked audibly in Steve’s ears, at least until Steve realized that it was the gas pump, $30.00 staring back at him unflinchingly from the scratched display panel. He hung the pump back up where it belonged.

Last Steve knew, Bucky didn’t like girls at all, but it was starting to feel like a lot had changed in the last year. More than Steve could understand, sitting out here with a man that didn’t know him and didn’t give two shits about the way Steve’s heart had been cracking apart, slowly, since Bucky drove away last August. He screwed the gas cap back on, ears and neck burning, and straightened up from his crouch. He held the can back over to Mr. Barnes.

“Good for him,” Steve said, looking at the Barnes International logo embroidered on the breast of Mr. Barnes’ shiny polo.

Mr. Barnes slapped Steve’s shoulder. “Good luck, kid,” he said.

Steve drifted back into the stifling heat of the marina, moving on some sort of out-of-body autopilot. His ears were maybe ringing, but he couldn’t really tell. He sat down hard on the stool. The fan breeze didn’t cool him off any, it just kept his shirt glued to his sweaty back.

He turned his head and looked out the window for a long time, not really focusing on anything. It took him a very long time to realize the wooden boat was gone. Someone had gotten into it and driven away, all while Steve pumped gas for Mr. Barnes.

Using a finger, Steve hooked a finger in the spiral binding and dragged his sketchbook closer. He looked down at his unfinished drawing—something about the perspective of the hull was off. The stern wasn’t wide enough, maybe.

Well, the boat was gone now. Steve tucked his pencil back into his pocket, closed his book, and went back to work.


	2. have I been away so long

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fifteen years later, Bucky returns to Eagle Inlet

George Barnes walked into Bucky’s office just as he was just finishing up a call with the architectural team on the Insight project.

“Two minutes,” Bucky mouthed, and his dad nodded, settling himself on the corner of the desk and turning Bucky’s monitor so he could better see the draft of the site plans while he listened in.

“Have the revised plans to us by Friday,” Bucky said, fighting the juvenile urge to fidget in his seat with his father hovering beside him. “Yep, Nat will send over the list of discussed changes. We’re presenting to the council on the 30th, so we’ll need this buttoned up by the end of next week.” He laughed at their response, unable to stop himself from glancing at his father to see if he reacted. “Yeah, you and me both, guys. Okay, I’ve got to hop. You too.”

“We back on track?” his father asked when he hung up.

Bucky nodded. “Plans are looking much better, just a couple small tweaks for the 179D threshold. I don’t foresee any issues with the city.” It was more expensive on the front end to design green buildings, but with a tax break of almost two bucks per square foot, it was stupid not to. And if Bucky quietly believed it was stupid not to do it regardless of the tax deductions, what with the whole global warming thing, that was his own business.

“Good,” his dad said, clapping him on the shoulder as he pushed off the desk, and Bucky felt a small trickle of relief. The Insight project was a fifty billion dollar development in New Jersey, comprising both commercial and residential spaces. It was Bucky’s biggest project to date, a client he’d personally courted over the last five years, and the early stages had been rockier than anticipated, which meant his father’s scrutiny had been even more intense than usual.

Bucky slowly exhaled as George walked toward the door, hoping that was the end of it. A quick drop in wasn’t exactly his dad’s style; he wasn’t one to waste time on pleasantries, preferring to invest his effort where improvement was needed—and according to him, Bucky was always in need of improvement.

But instead of leaving as Bucky hoped, he closed the office door with a firm _click_ that Bucky felt resonate in his gut. And then the other shoe dropped. “I want you to hand Insight off to Nat.”

Bucky’s brain short-circuited. “What?”

“She’s perfectly capable—”

“Of course she is, but why—”

“Odin called this morning, the boys are planning to reno that land they have up at the lake, do some kind of destination venue with it.” He waved his hand, the details too superfluous for him to recall. “I want you to handle it.”

Bucky fought to keep his expression neutral, knowing any strong emotion would be taken as weakness. “This doesn’t seem like a project that will require much of my time,” he said carefully. “Why don’t we let Peter take lead—”

“I want you on this.” His tone was clipped, his mouth flattening into a sharp line that meant his patience with Bucky had been exhausted. Except Bucky wasn’t six anymore, no matter how often his father might make him feel it, he wasn’t going to let himself be treated like an overstimulated toddler.

“I can handle the Odinsons as well as Insight, in that case.” The Odinsons were old family friends, and Asgard, Inc. had an exclusive partnership with Barnes International. There was enough trust between their firms that the projects needed hardly any oversight, and while one of the Barneses usually took lead as a formality, there was no fucking way Bucky needed to hand off the Insight project for something a first year intern could handle.

“No, James, you can’t,” his father said, sinking into one of the dark leather guest chairs on the other side of the desk.

“With all due respect, this isn’t your call to make,” Bucky said, balling his fists under his desk. He could feel the tell-tale flush creeping up his neck, feel the frantic crashing of his heart against his ribs as he fought to keep his voice even.

George’s lips curled in a patronizing almost-smile. “This is still my company, James. All the calls are mine to make.” He steepled his fingers, settling back in his chair. “We both know you’ve been overwhelmed lately, evident in the issues we’ve had with Insight.” He held up a hand when Bucky opened his mouth to defend himself. “I don’t want a failure of this magnitude to overshadow the announcement—the optics would be catastrophic.”

Bucky swallowed hard, a sick combination of anger and hurt rising like bile in his throat. “Insight is nowhere near failure. The issues at the outset were—”

“I wish I had your youthful confidence,” George interrupted, cocking his head with a condescending smile. “But I’ve got forty years and a hell of a lot more miles on me than you do, and I can see where this is headed.” He propped his ankle over his knee and took a moment to pick a piece of lint off his sock, as though he wasn’t in the process of cutting his son off at the knees. “We’ll clear Nat’s slate, get her focused solely on this, and with enough guidance, I think we’ll be able to right the ship and get it done.”

“And you don’t think _I_ can do that.” It wasn’t a question. He knew the answer.

“I want you to focus on getting ready for what’s next.” The obvious demur was his way of being kind.

“How can I ever be ready to run this company if you don’t even trust me to run my own fucking project?” Bucky spat, loosening the grip on himself just enough to expend a little of the pressure building inside his skull.

George raised his hands in a half shrug. His right trembled just slightly, and he quickly dropped his hands to his lap with a small frown. “Neither of us have much of a choice in this. We have to make the best of the hand we’ve been dealt.” He sighed, pausing to rub at his eyes. “Take a few weeks up at the lake with Thor and Loki. Do some work, get some sun, read a book—whatever you want. But come back with your head on straight and ready to go. I need you at a hundred percent for this.”

He looked tired, and it struck Bucky suddenly, sharply, how old he looked. You couldn’t see the decline on the surface; George Barnes was still fit, with steel gray hair full and perfectly styled, and deep lines carved around his mouth and eyes that suited him in a way that had always seemed, to Bucky at least, a bit dashing. But it was his hands that drew Bucky’s eyes then; they’d always been so broad and strong—a man’s hands, he’d thought, envious when his own were so slim and delicate in comparison—but wrinkled now, the skin gone papery and spotted with age. He was in his early seventies, and it was clear that fifty years of running the company had taken its toll on him.

Bucky wondered if it would do the same to him.

George stood and walked toward the door without giving Bucky a chance to respond. “Put a transition meeting on the calendar, and make sure Nat’s up to speed by the end of the week.” He paused, turning to give Bucky a hard look. “Don’t act like a kicked puppy, James. This is business. It’s not personal. You and I both know it’s for the best.”

Bucky nodded sharply, knowing if he opened his mouth he wouldn’t be able to take back what came out.

He sat at his desk for a long time after George left, watching the light move across the carpet and slowly fade away, until he was left with only the harsh glow of his monitors.

His father was right. That was the worst of it.

Bucky _had_ been overwhelmed. His usual meticulousness had gone sloppy in the early stages of the Insight project, when he’d been jumping from conference call to board meeting to PR strategizing to conference call. But every time he was forced to confront the looming reality of the announcement, it was like his skin shrank three sizes and his lungs forgot how to function. He’d always known it was coming in theory—Barnes International had been run by his family for three generations—but he’d never had to think about it in concrete terms, assuming they’d have to pry the keys to the castle out of his dad’s cold, dead hands.

Which, he supposed, they were.

He always thought when it finally happened, it would feel like a prize. Like the proverbial carrot finally within his grasp. Not the company—if Bucky was honest with himself, he didn’t have strong feelings about it one way or another. How he felt about it had never mattered; he was a Barnes, and so Barnes International was it for him. And he was good at what he did—he’d had to be, to rise through the ranks with his father’s foot on his neck, making sure Bucky had to fight for it, making him prove how much he wanted it every step of the way.

And he had wanted it. Then. He’d wanted to prove himself. Out of spite, out of the neverending, desperate need for his father’s attention and approval. But it wasn’t the work that mattered, or the titles, or the money, or anything else that came with it. It was the hope that at some point, it would be enough. That _he_ would be enough. That he could one day meet his father’s eyes and see respect rather than reproach in them.

He knew he was never going to get what he wanted from his dad—couldn’t even picture what that might look like. But still, there was a string tied to his guts, a tug with every success that said _maybe this time._

Maybe, he thought, pushing out of his chair and heading down the empty office hall toward the elevator, it was time to cut that cord. Time was running out for both of them.

* * *

He hadn’t taken the time to consider what it would mean to return to the lake, too wrapped up in everything else to give it much thought—or maybe he’d just been too cowardly face it. But as he merged onto the northway, the nostalgia crept in so suddenly Bucky didn’t even have a chance to brace himself before he was drowning in it, unconsciously rubbing the heel of his hand over his breastbone to ease the tight feeling in his chest.

He hadn’t considered the way it would feel to sit in summer traffic, to watch the scenery change from gray cityscape to lush green, to drive past signs and landmarks he hadn’t seen in years but still somehow knew by heart.

He hadn’t considered how much it might hurt for all those memories he’d balled into a corner of his brain to slowly unfurl with each mile closer to Eagle Inlet.

Bucky was ten again, sitting in the back of his father’s car with his headphones on full blast to drown out the sound of his parents sniping at each other. Staring out the window, watching the exit markers fly by, counting down the minutes until they pulled off the highway and turned into the marina and he saw Steve again for the first time in ten months.

He was twelve, relief and something else he couldn’t name welling up in him when he saw Steve leaning against the bike rack outside the marina office, trying to act casual as he waited for Bucky and fighting a losing battle against his excited grin, with popsicles melting through their wrappers in each hand.

He was thirteen, taking those few seconds while his father parked to greedily catalogue all the ways Steve had changed over the school year, the clutch in his belly shifting from competition to something more complicated.

He was seventeen, feeling like he’d die if he didn’t get out of the car and away from his parents that second so he could put his hands on all that warm, tanned skin Steve was showing off, his shoulders at least a foot wider than they’d been the summer before. “Hey, Buck,” Steve’d said, just like always, the smirk playing at his lips telling Bucky he knew just what he was thinking. And later, when they were alone, it’d been like all the intervening months of private school and internships and his father’s impossible expectations melted away under the heat of Steve’s hands, just like those cherry popsicles always had.

He was nineteen, exhausted and homesick in his tiny summer flat in Munich, reading the words _UNDELIVERABLE - sgr0704@hotmail.com does not exist_ on his screen and wondering if a month straight of eighteen hour days could make a person hallucinate.

He was nineteen, sitting on his bedroom floor, his heart thudding in his throat as he redialed the number he knew by heart with shaking fingers, hoping this time it would go through. _“We're sorry you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel this is in error, please check the number and try again.”_

He was nineteen, four thousand miles away from home, and the only person who’d ever really loved him had disappeared without a word.

Bucky hissed at himself and grabbed for the water bottle in the center console. The cap clanged loudly against the metal bottle, pulling him back into the present as he took a long pull of lukewarm water and tried to swallow down all the memories crawling out of the shadows. There was no good reason for him to still feel so haunted by the ghosts of Steve Rogers that even fifteen years later, the memories felt like broken bones that hadn’t set, left to fuse at awkward angles that pinched and twanged if he moved wrong.

He had almost an hour of driving left and he was not going to sit there in his feelings the whole time. “Siri, call Nat,” he said, and did what came easiest: focused on the work.

She answered on the first ring. “Wow, you lasted longer than I thought.”

“It’s not like I’m on vacation,” he said, not even making an effort to mask his petulance. She didn’t know the details of why he’d transitioned the Insight project to her, and he’d make sure she never did—she deserved to run this one through the finish line without his fucked up family dynamics weighing her down.

“Well if _my_ boss sent me to the lake for a few weeks to oversee a project that didn’t need oversight, I’d certainly treat it like one.” She paused. “Not that _my_ boss would ever do that.”

“You literally just got back from a two week vacation. In Spain.”

“And how many times did you call while I was there?”

“Zero!” he spluttered.

“Oh, that’s right,” she said. “You just emailed me every forty five seconds about stupid shit— _just FYI for when you’re back,_ ” she said in a voice that was probably meant to be his and was, frankly, insulting, “forcing me to call _you_ to make sure you weren’t fetal under your desk without me there holding your hand.”

“I hate you so much.”

“Yes, but more importantly: you need me. I love job security,” she said with a smug sigh. “I assume you’re calling to check in on Insight?”

“How’d the call go?” he said, settling himself into the familiar rhythm of site plans and city codes and ignoring the countdown clock in his brain that trilled with every passing mile marker.

* * *

The sign for the marina made his stomach dip, so he took the back road instead, navigating the twisty two lanes barely big enough for two cars to squeeze past each other to the back side of the lake. The camps along the drive all looked the same as they had fifteen years ago; the weathered wood of the houses and the shutters in barn reds and nautical blues paired with the shiny SUVs and sportscars in their driveways giving them away as summer rentals.

He almost drove past his own, expecting to see the white clapboard with navy trim and the embarrassingly kitschy ‘ _Ahoy, Barneses!’_ sign fashioned like a life preserver in the front yard. But their summer cottage had joined the ranks of its neighbors, long since updated to a crisp gray and white, with a meticulously maintained lawn bare of any personality that might remind renters that their vacation time was finite. Bare of any reminder that this had once been his sanctuary.

Now he was just another asshole summer tourist, parking his shiny black SUV in the driveway.

The inside of the house had been redone as well, all his mom’s outdated nautical-themed knick knacks and throw pillows replaced with clean minimalism that spoke of lived-in luxury—just high-end enough to assure that any renter would be impressed, but not so intimidating that they couldn’t make themselves at home. It was a relief, though, not to see reminders of his mom everywhere he looked. Another set of painful memories tied to the lake he wasn’t yet ready to confront.

He went upstairs to drop his bags and almost bypassed the master, ten years of muscle memory pulling him down the hall to the room that had once boasted a small twin bed that’d creaked so loud the first time he’d snuck Steve in, Steve yanked all the blankets off and made them a little nest on the floor instead. The memory was so visceral he could almost feel the way his knees ached on the barely cushioned floor, the way it’d seemed like his heart had swelled so big it felt like it was getting bruised up against his ribcage as he loomed over Steve in the dark. The way Steve looked up at him, mouth swollen and bitten red from trying to keep quiet, his eyes wide and intense, like he didn’t want to miss a single second of Bucky. Like he couldn’t look away. No one had ever looked at him like that before.

Bucky walked deliberately into the master and dropped his bags at the foot of the bed, viciously quelling the feeling that he was doing something forbidden by coming into his parents’ room without permission, and faceplanted directly onto the cool comforter. He breathed in the smell of unfamiliar laundry detergent and closed his eyes, counting to ten and imagining placing every painful memory this place held back in its place, locking them up in carefully labeled cabinets that said things like _Danger!_ and _Daddy Issues!_

Bucky rolled onto his back and sighed, running his hands over his face like he could wipe his brain’s crowded slate clean. He just wanted five minutes of quiet without his thoughts spiraling out of control. He thought about calling Nat again, but a glance at his watch told him she’d make him regret it. Her Friday evenings were sacred, and he tried to respect that. If only because no one had ever respected his.

He headed to the bathroom to shower instead, pausing by the big bedroom window to take in the view as he undressed. From the second story, he had an unobstructed view of the lake, and—as a personal gift to Bucky in his time of need—a very nicely built shirtless man running by the shore. The early evening sun glinted off his dark hair and undoubtedly sweaty and—it had to be noted—very broad shoulders, limning his tanned skin in gold.

 _Hello, sailor,_ Bucky thought as he watched his easy pace, a dark colored dog loping happily beside him. Bucky wondered if he was a dad vacationing with his family, using his daily run as an excuse for some quiet. Or maybe he was a local, working for one of the marinas. Working with his hands every day on the water, coming home pleasantly tired and eating dinner in front of the TV in a small cottage. Maybe he had a husband who was a teacher at one of the local schools. Maybe he’d come home and kiss his husband on the neck, cajole him into a sweaty shower. Maybe they’d eat dinner in bed, laughing and talking and touching until they both drifted off.

Maybe Bucky needed to get a fucking grip.

The other man’s life couldn’t be all pastoral ideal, Bucky reminded himself as he set the temperature and stepped into the blistering heat of the shower. Maybe he was stressed about his mortgage, or maybe he hated his job, too. No one’s life was perfect.

Still, he couldn’t quite drown the taste of envy at the back of his throat, no matter what the rational side of his brain said.

He made a face at himself in the mirror as he finger combed product through his curls in what he knew from experience was a futile effort to make them behave in this humidity. Not that he had anyone to impress here. Except if he happened to run into Mr. Sweaty Shoulders at the market, and if Mr. Sweaty Shoulders happened to be into slightly vain middle-aged men. Well. Bucky didn’t want to discourage him with a head of frizzy curls.

He grabbed his sunglasses and keys and headed out, his newest coping mechanism of a fantasy firmly in place to distract him.

* * *

It shouldn’t have surprised him to see the same couple still ran the market in town. They’d seemed ancient when Bucky had been a teenager, but somehow hadn’t aged a bit in the last fifteen years.

“You find everything alright, honey?” Doris asked, mouth painted the exact shade of bright pink it had been every summer from seven to seventeen. Something about it comforted him. At least some things were constant.

“You don’t happen to have any more fresh herbs, do you?” he asked, knowing what the answer would be. Of course the market was stocked with the basics, it fed the locals year round unless they wanted to take the half hour trek to Glenns Falls, but he wasn’t surprised when there was only a sad little bunch of wilted parsley to be found.

She pursed her lips sympathetically. “No, I’m sorry we don’t. But if you’re sticking around for awhile, I could put in a request on next week’s produce order if you want?”

“Oh.” Bucky was strangely touched. It was such a kind offer, to a complete stranger. He knew there was no way she recognized him—for one thing he couldn’t even imagine how many tourists had passed through her store over the years, and for another, he’d come a long way from the chubby kid with a head full of frizzy curls he’d been at seventeen.

“Well, if you wouldn’t mind? I promise I’ll buy whatever you get.”

“Of course, honey,” she said, smiling kindly, and ran a bit of blank receipt tape. “Just write down whatever you want and we’ll see what we can do.” He scribbled a few things and handed it back, biting back a grin at the way her eyebrows jumped when she looked it over. “Now what in the world do you use chervil for? I’ve never even heard of that one.”

“Makes a really good sauce for these,” he said, patting the paper wrapped steaks on the counter. “Well, mostly it’s the unholy amount of butter, but the chervil and tarragon help it along.”

Her eyes crinkled when she smiled at him. “Good for you. Sick of these kids who won’t eat anything but kale these days.” He tried not to wince. Kale was definitely a large part of his diet, unfortunately, but he was on pseudo-vacation, damnit. If he wanted to grill up some steak and smother it with béarnaise alone in a summer house two hundred miles from anyone he knew like some addict getting his fix in a dark parking lot, that was his business.

“You bring me a recipe for that sauce next time you come in. Sounds fancy as hell.”

He barked out a laugh. “You got it, ma’am.”

“Don’t you ma’am me and make me feel bad, now. I don’t get pretty folks like you in here very often, let me enjoy myself.”

He felt his cheeks heat a little and made a point of glancing at the nametag pinned to her vest. “I’ll see you next week then, Doris,” he said with a wink.

“Oh, get out of here,” she said, waving him away, but he could see she was pleased.

He was grinning to himself when he stepped out of the store and into the wall of heat outside. It was nearing eight o’clock, but the sun had barely set, the sky just beginning to blur pink at the edges. _Fuck it_ , he thought as a droplet of sweat slid down his nape, and he turned toward the diner down the street. It was too hot to cook.

It was a short walk, but still Bucky felt damp and wilted when he walked through the doors, pausing for a moment to appreciate both the blessed air conditioning and the rush of nostalgia that hit him. It was like walking into a time capsule. The diner was almost exactly as he remembered it, vaguely retro-themed with cracked red vinyl booths and black and white checked linoleum. The same jukebox sat at the front, and he’d bet all his quarters that the song list still hadn’t been updated since the seventies. There were so many memories tied to this place—dinners with his parents, when they’d still been able to be in the same room with one another, playing paper football with Thor and Steve in the back booths and annoying the hell out of the servers...

Bucky had to will that mental door closed as he slid onto one of the stools at the counter, the old cushion letting out a faint puff of air as he settled onto it. He snagged a plastic menu that somehow managed to be both sticky and dampy from the metal stand on th counter, and studied it like it wasn’t the exact same fare every diner in the entire country offered.

“What can I get you?” the server asked almost as soon as he set the menu down. He didn’t recognize her, and he couldn't tell if he was relieved or disappointed by that.

He almost ordered a cobb salad, dressing on the side, hold the bacon automatically, feeling caught off guard. But fuck it. “I’ll get the patty melt with onion rings, and a strawberry shake. To go, please.”

“You got it. Take about ten minutes or so,” she said, barely looking at him as she scribbled his order down, and turned to slap it on the pick up window.

He was frowning at his phone, responding to an idiotic question from the marketing team, when the song on the jukebox clicked over. He’d mostly been tuning out the noise in the restaurant while he scrolled, but it was like the first drawn out, mournful note drew a warm finger down his spine, then reached inside him and dragged him bodily into the memory.

They were sitting in the booth at the back, staring at each other across the table, wound up and wanting like they always were those days. He wanted to reach across the table and touch him. Anywhere. His hand, the soft crease of his elbow, the freckle on his cheek. _I hunger for your touch._ But Steve wasn’t out—couldn’t be there, in his small conservative town, and Bucky didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize Steve’s safety when he wouldn’t even be around in the aftermath. But it was frustrating, being so close. Knowing Steve was feeling that same pull in his belly. Seeing the flush rise slowly up his neck, the way his mouth parted and his eyes went a little dark. It was an ache that drummed in his blood, throbbed just under his skin like a bruise. It was a competition, to see how long they could last until one of them pulled the other into some private corner to get their hands and mouth on skin. It was—

“Here’s your shake, food’ll be right up,” the server said, sliding the to go cup in front of him. Mae, her name tag said. She had pretty hair, a thick brown with an attractive gray streak through the front. Like Rogue, he thought, a little hysterically.

Fuck. He ran a hand over his mouth and dragged the cup closer, taking a long drink from the straw. It hurt after a moment, but a cold spike to the brain was probably better than whatever memory was waiting in the wings to ambush him next.

He went back to his phone, determined to distract himself with work until he could get out of there. Another man settled to his right, leaning against the counter instead of sitting. Bucky glanced over, clocking thick forearms covered in dark hair, and then firmly redirected his eyeballs to his phone before he was tempted to check him out any further. He was not in the mood to be hate-crimed by a small town homophobe tonight.

“Hey, hon,” Mae said, her tone decidedly warmer than the one she’d used on Bucky. There was a crinkle of a paper bag as she handed over his to-go order. “I put a slice of pecan in there for you, too. Thought of your ma while I was making it up this morning.”

“Oh,” the man said softly, and something about his voice made a chill run through Bucky. His eyes snapped up of their own volition and—

His head filled with shrill, crackling static, his vision going dark at the edges and his breath catching on something jagged and sharp in his chest. Bucky hadn’t even considered—it just wasn’t— _fuck_.

Steve Rogers was not supposed to be in Eagle Inlet.

But there he was. Standing two feet away from Bucky for the first time in fifteen years, bigger than life and Bucky didn’t know what to do except stare, his brain busily cataloguing what was different. What was the same. The flex of his jaw and the shape of his mouth, and the way Bucky still knew that meant he was upset but determined not to show it. Big hands gripping the counter, faded white scars in sharp relief. Hair overgrown and shaggy, darker than Bucky remembered. A full beard, and still Bucky knew him. He knew the slope of those shoulders and the inelegant shape of that nose and if he turned his head a couple inches, Bucky would know the exact summer sky blue of those eyes too.

“Thanks, Mae,” Steve said, his voice deep and even and sinking right into Bucky like a stone through water. “I know she’d appreciate that.”

He bent to sign the charge slip, and Bucky caught sight of the freckle behind his ear. Marking the spot that made Steve shiver when Bucky’d kiss it. Stupid. It was stupid but Bucky’s eyes prickled at the thought and he must have made some kind of noise because Steve glanced over and froze.

“Bucky?” he said after a long moment, his voice strained and incredulous.

“Uh, yeah. Hi.” Idiot idiot idiot. His heart pounded and his head hurt and he knew his involuntary grin was too wide and wobbling, making him look unhinged.

Steve straightened, and Bucky felt himself shrink in the shadow of his size. He watched as Steve’s face closed down, going from naked shock to something cold and impenetrable in a blink. “What are you doing here?” he said flatly.

Bucky licked his lips, tried to keep his voice from betraying the way his heart was throbbing sickly in his throat. “Doing some work with Thor and Loki, believe it or not.”

“Oh,” Steve said, and Bucky couldn’t tell what emotion passed through the word. He couldn’t read anything on Steve’s stone-set face, and something like grief welled in him at the realization that he didn’t know Steve anymore. Not where it mattered.

“Well, good luck with it,” Steve said curtly, and turned back to Mae who was watching their exchange with avid curiosity. “Thanks for the pie, Mae. I gotta get going, Molly’s waiting for me in the car.”

If his voice had been a stone before, it was an anchor weight now. _Molly_. Bucky felt rooted to the spot, paralyzed while he watched Steve smile tightly as he gathered up his bag of food.

“Sure, hon. Tell her hi from me,” Mae said, from somewhere very far away.

“Will do,” Steve said, his voice somehow immediate, cutting through the high-pitched ringing in Bucky’s ears. Bucky watched in slow motion as Steve turned and strode past without giving him another glance. He determinedly did not turn to watch him go, keeping his eyes on his milkshake in front of him, concentrating on the condensation dripping down the cup in slow streams.

He let his mind go completely offline as he paid for his food and walked back to his car. He couldn’t remember even a second of the drive, on autopilot until he pulled into the driveway, and it wasn’t until he’d put the grease-stained paper bag of takeout on the kitchen counter that he realized he’d forgotten his groceries at the diner.

His eyes prickled with tears as he thought about his steaks, no doubt spoiled by now. He should have brought them home and cooked for himself as he’d intended. His father’s voice was in his head, telling him he could have avoided all this if only he hadn’t been so lazy.

All...what, though. What had happened? He couldn’t even begin to process it.

When Steve had cut him off the first time, Bucky had felt unmoored. Lost in a way he’d never experienced, confused and so hurt it was a physical weight in him. It’d taken him a full year to stop obsessing over what had happened, what he could have done wrong, why Steve would just leave him without a word.

Now, the memory of Steve was both a scar and an anchor point; a wound so long-healed he could hardly remember a time before he’d been marked by it.

When he thought of Steve, he thought of his careful hands and his sharp mouth, and the way he’d looked into Bucky and _seen_ him like no one else ever had, before or since. They’d been young and stupid, and maybe it never would have lasted anyway—but Steve saw him, and still he’d kept looking. That meant something to Bucky, even fifteen years later.

He stumbled upstairs, fishing out his bottle of sleeping pills and dry swallowing one before stripping off his clothes and climbing into bed, closing his eyes and determinedly not thinking about the way Steve had looked at him tonight, with nothing but cold emptiness in those summer blue eyes.

Bucky wasn’t going to let Steve inflict a wound he wasn’t sure he had the energy to heal this time.


	3. ain't a man alive that likes to be alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deck repair for the emotionally drained

* * *

“Budge over, sweetheart,” Steve said, gently nudging Molly out of the driver’s seat so he could get in the truck. She licked his hand when he leaned over, sticking his dinner in the footwell in front of her. Like always, she just seemed to know how he felt, and instead of sticking her nose in the bag of food, she just lay down across the bench seat and dropped her face in his lap. She looked up at him with her big brown eyes, ears perked up like she was listening to all the turmoil churned up inside of him like choppy water, and heaved a great sigh the way only a dog could get away with.

The engine turned over hard, and Steve didn’t waste time pulling out of the parking lot, avoiding the pothole that had been steadily growing for the last ten years and skirting a group of tourists cycling four across down the main drag. He squeezed the wheel until he thought all the hard foam would just… _burst_. He wondered if maybe his heart was going to burst, too, from how hard it was beating.

Bucky Barnes, back in town, with a frozen, insincere smile on his pretty face, saying a casual _hi_ at the diner, like fifteen years hadn’t gone by since the last time Bucky left.

The southbound lane of I-87 had swallowed Bucky alive, apparently, at exactly the moment Steve had been most alone in the world. And now, _now_ , when Steve was more than ten years into a worn-out groove of a quiet life, the highway saw fit to spit Bucky back out into Eagle Inlet, awkward pleasantries and all, like Steve wanted any part of that horrible trip down memory lane.

The drive home was a good twenty minutes around the lake, light filtering through the thick trees the whole time. It burned his eyes and all the muscles in his face were drawn up tight in a squinting displeasure that wouldn’t be eased, no matter how slowly he tried to breathe or how often he unclenched his jaw. Steve remembered, in vivid and living color, the overwhelming rush of being a teenager, and hated every moment of how small it made him feel again.

Steve pulled up to his house and parked the truck with a sigh, seeing without looking the familiar simplicity of his tiny house, the barn-red siding and the deck with its single adirondack chair, angled to look out over the water and catch the sunset. Molly streaked past him, tail thumping over his knees, the porch railings, wiggling against his side as he unlocked the door and juggled in his dinner and a beat up accordian folder of paperwork from the marina.

The kitchen table looked like it always did this time of year: marina paperwork in piles at one end, and contractor paperwork at the other, everything meeting and overlapping in the middle. He did everything he could to keep the proliferation of paperwork down to nothing, but come May it was always an explosion of bills and taxes and responsibility, and it wasn’t until at least October that he’d be able to eat a meal in here again. He set this week’s bulging pile down on top of his beat up laptop running an outdated version of Quickbooks, and scrounged around his kitchen for a minute. He fed Molly and left her clean water, and then took a long time looking out the window while he washed his hands, staring out at his small, narrow dock and the smooth, glassy water stretching across to Bucky’s side of the lake.

Molly stuck her nose in the back of Steve’s knees, nudging him none too politely, and he slid open the back door, bringing his bagged up dinner, a can of Guinness, and a fork from the dish rack he was too tired to empty three days ago. By the time he sat down, Molly was already sprinting between the trees, chasing squirrels far above her reach. Soon enough, she’d get tired and come up here to beg Steve for his french fries, or streak off the end of the dock and into the water.

Outside, the fresh air did little to relax him, and he reclined against the steep back of his chair, tipping his head back, food and beer immediately forgotten at his feet. He could feel the throbbing ache of a headache blooming behind his eyes, and he just kept _looking_ , staring out over the water.

He’d never before hated the sight of other people’s boats and docks bobbing along the opposite shore, or the glint of sun off windows across the water. Even the sight of stairways, vining through the tree-dense embankment from dock to house, made him feel sick, no matter the fact that he’d been paid good money to work on them over the last ten, fifteen years. The slow-burning anger Steve had felt since the dinner suddenly seemed pitifully small in the face of what he felt right this minute.

It was one thing to sometimes Google Bucky in moments of deep-winter weakness, to click through Facebook photos of Bucky in a slick black tuxedo at a charity gala or presenting at some business event Steve couldn’t possibly give less of a shit about. It was painful to see Bucky looking bashful and charming, arm-in-arm with the same bombshell redhead in picture after picture, his arm wrapped around the narrowest part of her unreal hourglass figure.

So yeah, it _was_ one thing to know Bucky was out there with a hot girlfriend, successful at everything he tried, getting everything he’d ever wanted and more. That was Steve’s weakness, and his fault for looking those things up. He knew better, and still, every once in a while, he did it anyway.

But it was another thing for Bucky to be here, like he belonged. Like he’d be welcomed. Like just the sight of him in the diner hadn’t followed Steve home like a ghost, dragging memories behind him on rattling chains.

Getting over Bucky Barnes had never been a straight shot for Steve. It had been a continuous tangle of getting over his first love, watching his mother die a rapid and painful death, hemorrhaging money to the hospitals, trying to run the marina, and losing his chance at RISD. It was like drowning, and it took a long, long time to push himself back up towards the sun.

And that’s what this moment felt like. Drowning.

And maybe if Steve were twenty-three instead of thirty-three, he’d be drowning for longer still. But the fact was that he had hours of paperwork yet to go, a muddy dog to towel off, and dinner getting cold. Pecan pie.

A whole life that never once included Bucky Barnes.

So Steve did what he always did, which was get up and go to work.

* * *

Thor stopped by a couple days later with a conciliatory six-pack of something that Steve would’ve walked right on by, based on the orange price sticker.

“Thanks,” Steve said dryly, taking the other five. Thor gave him a lopsided tip of his already cracked can, and invited himself into Steve’s living room. “You know,” Steve said, “you might’ve warned me. On the basis of, what, twenty years of knowing each other.”

Molly was enthusiastically attempting to lick Thor’s face, only barely fended off with a big hand on her shoulders. “Steve, we haven’t said his name in front of you since before we could buy beer. Will it make you feel better if I tell you he was furiously emailing Loki at three in the morning?”

“No,” Steve said, as flatly as he could while taking a sip of something more expensive than a good cut of steak.

Like always, Thor was easygoing, and the conversation shifted tracks easily, not that it was much of an improvement. “You update your website yet?”

Steve sighed, shifting on the couch and wishing for a football game. “When would I have the time? It’s summer. Ask me in a few months if I’ve got any new art.”

“You could sell the marina, you know. To me, to be clear, not someone else. Then you might have the time to draw something other than a map to the thruway.”

There was a split second where Steve did want to say, _yeah, sure,_ but then he looked around his mother’s house, and demurred, as he had for years and years. “No, thanks,” Steve said. “Finish your drink, we’re going waterskiing.”

It meant being hours late on the neverending list of things to do, but then again, that was summer.

* * *

Gloria Sherman was eighty if she was a day, old money with a big old camp that her kids routinely trashed from the start of summer through the last firework after Labor Day. After that, they’d ignore her, and Steve would see her tootling around town in a boat of a Cadillac, lonely but cheerful, bringing around cherry chocolate cake, newspaper clippings, and books she’d read and wanted to share. Once the snow started falling, Steve would be sure to stop by and shovel or plow, scattering salt from stoop to mailbox.

Monday started with a phone call at five-thirty-three, because Gloria was at the age when time was irrelevant. Molly huffed and scooted to the end of the bed when Steve answered the phone with a creaky voice.

“Steve?” she said. “It’s Gloria Sherman.”

“Hey, Gloria,” Steve said, rubbing sleep and loose dog hair out of his eyes. “What’s going on?”

“You know my son, Oliver, don’t you?”

Steve said he did know Oliver. Oliver was a rich asshole of the most stereotypical sort, usually drunk, either charming or belligerent based on what he wanted to weasel out of someone, and had pretty much spent his fifty-something years on this earth breaking his mother’s heart. Whatever she was about to say wasn’t going to be pretty.

“Well, he just had a sip too much the other night. You know how that heat just gets to you when you’re on the water,” she said, blustering through what had to be Oliver’s millionth _sip too much_. “Anyway, he just… dinged up the boat and the dock a little while backing in. I know you’re busy as a beaver, but do you think you could come by and take a look?”

Steve sighed and thought about the day ahead. He’d planned on being in the marina for inventory today. He’d have to call in Billy and Teddy instead. They wouldn’t mind working together all day, based on the kiss he’d walked in on last week, and he always let them take all the ice cream they wanted from the case on days he called them in. Yeah, he could swing it and do inventory after hours.

“Sure thing, Gloria. How about me and Molly stop in around seven or so? Just need a little time to grab the trailer from the lot and get the truck packed up.”

“Oh, thank you Steve,” she said, sounding so grateful it hurt. “I’ll make you up some coffee, dear.”

“No problem. I’ll see you soon.”

The call ended and Steve looked up at the ceiling. It was already past sunrise, light creeping across the ceiling through the curtains. It looked beautiful, and he took a moment to stretch out across the bed, taking stock of his body, the ways he was tired and the way he was slowly waking. He liked the look of the sunrise, but there was nothing and no one to keep him in bed, so he rolled over and put his feet on the floor.

Another day.

* * *

Steve was pretty sure Gloria had made him decaf, because by the time 9 am rolled around, he was dragging. He’d just finished getting the boat down to the launch and dragging it out of the water, dropping it off at the mechanics for what was sure to be hefty repairs to the stern and propeller.

Next up was the dock. It wasn’t totally wrecked, but the wood was old and soft to begin with. It ended up splintering more than might’ve otherwise, nails pulling free here and there. He’d need to replace quite a few boards, and the hardest part would be getting the lumber up and down the stairs by himself. The sun was up high already, and Steve just knew he’d be sweating through his shirt well before lunch.

As he was just about to pull back into Gloria’s driveway, tools and two-by-fours in the back of the truck, Steve crushed the overflow of teenage memories threatening his day to day sanity. Driving around the lake was like an excavation of shitty old memories these days, the soil already turned loose just from seeing Bucky at the diner half a week ago. Steve realized he hadn’t thought about the fact that Gloria’s house was just one camp down from Bucky’s, and he wished this could’ve been like every other summer, all of it willfully and ruthlessly forgotten.

Instead, he got out of his truck, turned his head away from the window he’d once snuck in, the shiny, late model car in the driveway, and burned his tongue on a sip of bitter gas station coffee from Stewarts. Molly trailed after, bumping him with her nose, her side, her floppy tail.

The work was good, for a while. It wasn’t blistering hot yet, the sun yanking itself high up into the sky and growing warmer by inches. The dock was mostly steady beneath him, rocking with him, with the wake of people cruising by, under the weight of Molly pacing the boards and flopping down for a nap in the sun. Sound travelled strangely on the lake, carrying from camp to camp, boat to boat, on the backs of the waves, ambient and smooth. Work was a routine, a practice of slow physical obliteration that left him tired by the end of the day. Steve lost himself in the act of peeling out nails and screws, making piles of ruined boards and fasteners.

It was like a dream at first, the sound of Bucky’s voice drifting over to Steve, and for a split second, he relaxed into the idea of it. He could hear the rise and fall of Bucky’s pretty voice from behind his back, professional and polite, reeling off reams of information Steve couldn’t even try to follow.

Steve turned and looked over his shoulder. Bucky had his back to Steve, standing at the edge of the dock and watching the far end of the lake. Gone was the slouchy, soft teenage boy. Bucky had grown up, with dark hair on his strong legs, body small and tight inside of fitted baby blue shorts. His waist was narrow, perfectly clean white shirt rumpled at the small of his lithe back, and loose sleeves rolled up to his forearms, body widening out at the shoulders. He was still smaller than Steve, shorter. Delicate and sturdy all at once, and the whole shape of him, from perfect curls to leather boat shoes, looked sleek and expensive, distant from Steve by several thousands of dollars.

Bucky didn’t even notice him. He just kept on talking on his phone. Steve could feel himself becoming hot and angry, a gnawing that started in his stomach and swelled all the way up to his lungs, his throat, until there was a faint throbbing in his head, almost like a headache but far more vicious than that. It made him want to slink up the stairs, unnoticed, and drive away, leaving Gloria with a half-demolished deck and a promise to come back next summer, maybe. He considered it for half a minute, even, before remembering—this was _his_ fucking town.

The last few ruined boards were yanked away with brute force and carelessness. He didn’t care how loud he was being. Steve had the childish hope that it would be a distraction, that _Bucky_ would feel that horrible, stomach-tightening dread Steve had been feeling.

Still, it was like a sharp splinter under Steve’s nail when Bucky turned around, dropping his phone into his pocket and heaving a sigh before his eyes even fell on Steve. With the sun over Bucky’s shoulders, it was impossible to make out Bucky’s expression, just shadows and light falling at obscuring angles over a man’s face. Steve held his breath and looked at Bucky for as long as he could bear—

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky said.

Steve realized he was squinting at Bucky, and looked down at the hammer in his hands. “Hey, Bucky.”

“Didn’t know you were down here.”

“Just helping Gloria out with an accident.”

Bucky nodded and the conversation stalled. It was like being out in the middle of the lake without an ounce of gas in the tank.

Steve swept the loose nails and screws into a plastic coffee can, screwing on the lid. He tried not to look at Bucky, but he did anyway. The whole time he could feel Bucky’s scrutiny like it was breathing hot and clammy all over the back of his neck and in his ear.

“You, uh, need any help?” Bucky asked.

The _no_ Steve almost said was burning in the back of his throat. It was usually what he said if someone asked. But a nasty little part of Steve liked that this was the least of what Bucky owed him, and so Steve looked up from where he was stooped over a stack of ruined wood, and just said, “Yeah. Help me get this up the stairs.”

It took Bucky a moment of picking over the rocky shore to cross the area between the two docks, all the while Bucky coming into sharper focus. Molly got up from where she was flopped over, still slightly damp from a quick dip into the water to bark at some ducks, and wagged her tail with increasing excitement as Bucky stepped up onto Gloria’s dock.

Something panged inside of Steve when Molly bounced right into Bucky’s knees, excited and already trying to find a way to launch her face at Bucky’s face for some overly-enthusiastic greeting.

“Molly, get down, would you.”

“Molly?” Bucky asked, and she preened as Bucky bent over to scratch behind her ears. “That’s a pretty name for a dog.” Her tail thumped enthusiastically when Bucky crooned her name one more time.

“Yep,” Steve said. “Grab the front there. It’ll be lighter for you going up the stairs.”

Bucky listened at least, Steve would give him that. It was a pretty bulky load of two-by-fours, and even if they weren’t eight footers, they were still going to be awkward to hoist around the three turns in the staircase. But Bucky handled it better than Steve had expected and had taken every sharply worded instruction in stride. It was helpful, but Steve found himself almost _mad_ about how polite Bucky was being about the whole thing. Steve didn’t feel any better when they laid the wood down on the truck bed, and Bucky finally stepped away so Steve could slam the gate shut.

“Well, thanks,” Steve said, turning back to Bucky. He saw that Bucky was looking down at his right hand, picking at the web of skin between thumb and forefinger. “Splinter?” he asked.

There was a frown on Bucky’s face when he answered, lower lip sticking out and brow all tucked together in concentration. “Yeah. We keep a first aid kit in the house, for the renters.”

Steve saw that there was an angry smear of red already—not a lot, but a smear of blood making a mess of Bucky’s palm with his ineffectual picking.

“Here,” Steve said, guilt and resignation like two kicks to the stomach. “Let’s get it cleaned up.”

Molly had laid down under Gloria’s apple tree out front, and Steve told her her stay. She barely looked up at him from where she was lolling in the grass, legs stretched out and tail idly wagging.

The inside of the Barnes’ camp was a lot like the outside: elegantly generic, without an ounce of kitsch or personality. It clearly made them a lot of money attracting renters that didn’t like anything even camp-adjacent but had stumbled up into the mountains on accident. Even though Bucky had been up here for at least a week, it still had that cool, realtor photo perfection look to it. No blankets balled up in the corner of the couch or a loose book on an end table. It didn’t look anything like what Steve had remembered.

“It’s in the master bathroom,” Bucky said, holding his injured hand awkwardly aloft. The blood looked less fresh at least, now that he’d stopped picking at it. “I don’t think you’ve…”

“Nope,” Steve. He’d realized that, at some point, he’d shoved his hands into his pockets like some defensive kid, and deliberately took them out as he trailed after Bucky, moving deeper into the home.

The hallway was just as listless as the rest of it; it was just more neutral, forgiving colors on the walls and bland HDR landscape photos that had absolutely nothing to say. Steve thought he saw the door that had opened to Bucky’s childhood bedroom, but Bucky led him beyond that, past the sick wave of childhood memories, and into a room glowing with light from the big, lakeview picture window. The bed was unmade, white sheets bared to the room. There were clothes draped over an armchair. A suitcase peeked out of the cracked closet door.

Bucky disappeared into an adjacent doorway and Steve trailed over to lean against the jamb, watching as Bucky rinsed his hands clean. The bathroom was enormous and cleanly tiled with whites and blacks and greys and the faintest touch of blue. The vanity was huge, and the countertop was dotted with bottles and jars and a neatly zippered toiletry bag. The most personality Steve had seen so far, and yet it could all easily get swept into a suitcase in a matter of moments.

“Where did I…” Buck said, bending over to peek under the sink. “See it…” Steve could watch the shift of muscles under Bucky’s pulled-tight shirt, the shift of long, lean muscle pulling as Bucky rooted around with his left hand, and he did watch, eyes moving up to look at Bucky’s neck, the dark hair just ever so slightly curling at the nape. “Here it is.”

Steve finally let himself be pulled into the room as Bucky laid a giant plastic white box on the counter, square red cross on front. The smell of Bucky’s soap only grew in here, traces of wood and flower and salt, and when Steve stood next to Bucky at the counter, he could practically feel it in his teeth, like an ache. He washed his hands, too, scrubbing away grit and lake water, feeling at loose ends even with his hands busy and nothing to say and nowhere to look, unless he wanted to stare at Bucky’s reflection in the mirror.

The first aid kit looked brand new, everything still neatly packed away and wrapped in plastic. There was gauze and antiseptic ointment and bandaids, but no needle or tweezers to dig the splinter out with.

“You got any tweezers? Or a safety pin?”

Bucky looked up from where he was peeking over Steve’s shoulder, biting his lip for a moment for a moment before murmuring an _excuse me_ and reaching past Steve to snag the toiletry bag. His body was familiar and unfamiliar all at once, hot and sweet-smelling, pressed halfway across Steve’s chest for a moment so long and short it hurt.

There was a tightness in Steve’s chest as he took the tweezers; the tightness squeezed hard and cruel around his lungs as they faced each other, shuffling closer. Wordlessly, Steve held out his hand, and Bucky was just as silent as he laid his hand in the cup of Steve’s palm. For a moment, everything was still. It was the first time they’d touched in fifteen years, and Steve felt far too many things all at once for the smallness of this single room. He’d need a whole reservoir for everything he felt right now, for what he knew he’d be feeling later today.

Steve exhaled as gently as he could manage. He slid his fingertips over the bump and puncture of the splinter still stuck in Bucky’s hand; it wasn’t the worst but it was pretty big, wedged deeply into the fleshy, loose skin above the ball of his thumb.

Bucky’s hands were soft and unblemished, silk-like compared to the cracked leather of Steve’s hands. He barely flinched as Steve pressed and dug, trying to ease the splinter out without leaving anything behind, without gouging Bucky’s hand wide open. Their skin was warm and still a little damp from washing, each touch clinging for half a gentle beat too long. Their heads were tipped together, and each inhale was a fresh wave of Bucky’s clean scent, the rich layers of him, soap and cologne and whatever all these jars and tubes were for.

The biggest chunk of wood went into the trash, then a couple tiny slivers following after. “How’s that feel?” Steve asked. “Think it’s all out now but you ought to keep an eye on it.”

There wasn’t any more blood, and Steve’s fingers somehow stayed steady through dabbing on a bit of neosporin and easing a bandaid around the curve of Bucky’s hand. It was easy to be careful with Bucky, here, smoothing the edge of his bandage one last time before letting go.

“Thanks, Steve.” Bucky said, his voice quiet.

“Anytime, Buck,” Steve said, because it rolled out like a habit, to be kind to Bucky, to mean that he’d patch Bucky up the same as they’d done for each other since they were kids crashing their bikes on the hills and trails.

Their eyes met, and there was a bitter cracking open deep inside, the two ragged edges of Steve no longer quite able to meet in the middle like armor. There was a dissonance: it was the kid Bucky he remembered, seventeen and beautiful and half of Steve’s whole life; it was a handsome and polished stranger, distant even at a couple of inches away. Steve washed hands again, drying them off on his jeans.

The smallest, most aching part of Steve wondered: what did Bucky see now, looking at Steve? But, immediately, anger welled up in the wake of that thought, making Steve grind his teeth at the thunderstorm blue of Bucky’s eyes, fixed on his.

“You look good,” Steve said, looking away from Bucky’s eyes to take in Bucky’s body up close, the lean, adult lines of his body. His white linen shirt was thin, and Steve could see the shape of him, the dark circles of his nipples just barely visible through the fabric. His baby blue shorts showed off a tapered waist that led down to the thick athleticism of his thighs, the hair darker and thicker now that it had been at seventeen or eighteen. Abruptly, Steve wondered if the insides of his thighs were still thick and fat, soft and absurdly pale, dusted with soft, fine hair that smeared this way and that with the globs of cheap lube they used to use.

There was painfully familiar red burning along Bucky’s cheekbones when Steve looked up. “You, too. Beard and everything. You’re even bigger, somehow.”

“Work, mostly,” Steve said, scratching the back of his arm to keep from reaching out for Bucky.

“Steve, I—” Bucky said, but paused, licking his lips. They looked soft, like kissing them wouldn’t hurt or itch or burn, but would just feel nice, and sweet, the moment before cotton candy melted on his tongue.

“We got on pretty good back then, didn’t we?” Steve said, because he didn’t know what Bucky was going to say and he didn’t want to hear it if it was going to hurt. Steve knew it would. “For two kids, I mean. I never hurt you. Always got you off, right?”

The words hung in the air, crude but especially so because it was Bucky’s bathroom, fifteen years too late and unlike anything Steve had ever spat out to anyone else he’d been with.

Bucky’s mouth hung open for a moment, and Steve watched Bucky’s square jaw work around a swallow. “Yeah. Well.. yeah. It was good. Really good. I’ve never... forgotten that.”

It didn’t seem possible, but Steve stepped closer. There was something venomous and fiery chasing itself through Steve’s veins, choking the life out of his common sense. He put a hand on Bucky’s waist, small and tight, shifting with Bucky’s quick breathing and he _squeezed_ , trying to ground himself. It didn’t work.

There was hardly any space left between them. Bucky’s hair brushed the tip of his nose. It was citrus and sweat and like a gut punch of memory. “We could see if I’m any better now,” Steve said. “I’ve had a little more practice since then.”

Steve could hear Bucky hold his breath. He could feel Bucky swallowing hard. Bucky didn’t say anything but his waist shifted under Steve’s hold.

And then Bucky was pressing his mouth to Steve’s neck, to the vulnerable, soft place where he half-heartedly trimmed his beard to something sort of neat, where his blood rushed at just the suggestion of sex. Steve closed his eyes and wished he were stronger. When Bucky shifted back, Steve nudged Bucky’s chin up with a couple fingers, and when he could no longer take the blown out, desperate look in Bucky’s eyes, he kissed him.

Later, Steve would remember that for half a moment, that kiss had been gentle, possessed with all the same glorious fearfulness of all their shared firsts, the wonder of coming together even as worry churned through them and left them panting and electrified.

But gentle hurt too much. It ached less to be forceful, to press the corner of Bucky’s mouth open with his thumb. Every little way Bucky yielded—because he did, opening his mouth to Steve’s tongue, letting Steve box him in against the cold, hard vanity, postureless and Steve’s for the taking—Steve asked for more, feeding himself on the way Bucky offered himself right up for Steve’s kiss, for the way Steve moved him this way or that, ungentle. Unkind, almost, in how much it would hurt the both of them later, when Steve could think.

“You still like to get fucked?” Steve asked, already reaching down to fit his hands to Bucky’s ass, digging his fingers in through the thin fabric of his shorts until Bucky squeaked into his mouth. “Do you?

Bucky just nodded, pulling Steve tighter by the shoulders, fitting their mouths back together. They were pressed against the vanity, but still dressed and grinding their cocks together through their clothes wasn’t going to cut it anymore.

“Turn around,” Steve ordered, stepping back and looking quickly away from the rash blooming around Bucky’s mouth, his cheeks and throat, away from the beautifully wrecked look on Bucky’s face. He helped twist Bucky around by the hips, and slammed Bucky forward, pinning him all over again. “What do you have in here? Let’s open you up.”

“Here,” Bucky said, reaching out a shaky hand towards the toiletry bag, still half opened from digging out those tweezers, but Steve was quicker, and he yanked it all the way open and shook everything out, sending everything—god, bottles and tubes and all sorts of useless shit—scattering across the countertop and into the sink. A strip of ultra thin condoms draped itself over the faucet.

The lube came in an expensive matte tube, and it was maybe half-used, which only made Steve want to fuck Bucky more, angry at his own possessive hunger. Steve held onto the lube even as he reached around to yank Bucky’s belt and pants open as best he could, quickly fitting his hand under Bucky’s waistband to give Bucky’s cock a harsh, dry squeeze before pulling everything down around Bucky’s spread thighs.

Steve spread Bucky’s ass open with one hand. Bucky clearly waxed these days, and his little hole pulsed with a sweet sensitivity when Steve rubbed a dry thumb right over it, digging in a bit and playing with Bucky’s experienced body. When Steve poured cold lube all over his fingers, letting it drip down all over Bucky’s crack, his hole, down to his tight, flushed balls, Bucky didn’t even flinch.

“You used to gag for it,” Steve said, rubbing two wet fingers over Bucky’s hole. “Remember that? You loved it. Couldn’t get enough. Let’s see...” Just a little more deliberate pressure and then Steve was easing those two fingers inside, swallowed right up by the red little pout wrapped tight around his fingers. “Yeah, look at that. Still desperate, aren’t you? Jesus.”

Steve braced Bucky as he worked, kept him bent over the vanity under the pressure of a hand on his lower back. His thighs were spread as wide as his shoved-down shorts would let him go. The seams of his fitted shirt strained where Bucky was reaching towards the edges of the countertop but never quite gripping anything substantial. The fingerfucking had a muscle in Bucky’s thigh jumping, and Steve watched that, watched the greedy suction of Bucky’s body lock up tight around his fingers, watched the unsteady rise and fall of Bucky’s back with each breath.

It was careful, but it wasn’t tender or slow, and it wasn’t about learning or memorizing. It had more to do with efficiency, about too much rather than too little, a glut of sensation that made time move so quickly the air itself felt hot like sunburn. Steve was rewriting the tenderness of old memories, ruthlessly painting over all the old ways they’d come together in love until there would be nothing left but this one blip in their lives, Steve fucking away fifteen years of resentment in a bathroom like it’d fix anything.

“You ready?” Steve asked, slowly withdrawing his fingers. The air was so cold compared to the heat of being inside.

Bucky’s exhale was sharp. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

Trying not to make a mess, Steve opened up his pants and only tugged them down enough to get his cock out of his underwear. He rubbed up against the wet seam of Bucky’s body while he reached forward for a condom, tearing it open with the corner clenched between his teeth. Rolling it on with a fistful of lube, he thought, _I used to go bare with him_.

But anything else Steve might’ve thought was obliterated when he started pushing into Bucky’s body, into the blistering, clingy heat of him, just a long and steady fuck that left Steve panting and bent over the shaking line of Bucky’s back, listening to Bucky’s tremulous, high-pitched whines. Catching his breath was impossible. Steve just panted, hunched over and head hanging down so low he was practically touching the back of Bucky’s neck, unable to move. Bucky’s body had taken him right in, silky smooth, greedier than a fist.

When Steve raised his head a little, he could see Bucky’s face in the mirror, the sex-flush on his face, the wrecked pout of his swollen mouth. They were close. If Steve bent his head, or if Bucky turned his head to the side, if they both simply met in the middle, they could kiss again.

The soft, hazy look in Bucky’s eyes was a million miles and fifteen years too late.

Steve straightened, breathing out sharply as he gave a couple shallow rocks of his hips, testing the way Bucky had opened for him. Bucky was all hot, wet satin on the inside, drenched with the easy glide of lube, plush muscle rippling softly around Steve’s cock. When he looked down, all he could see was the hot little tug of that rim mouthing at his shaft, constantly pulling him back in.

He was slow and steady at first, easing Bucky to an even more yielding softness, but the truth was it didn’t take much to get there. Holding onto Bucky’s hips, it was like he could just fuck and fuck, going harder and harder, chasing each breathless cry from Bucky’s mouth. He used his hands around Bucky’s waist to bend him, to ease him forward and back until he could rub up against Bucky’s prostate again and again. He focused on just that, on the way Bucky was practically crying from it, wriggling in Steve’s grip, body begging for _more_ and _less_ all at once.

“Fuck,” Steve said, winded, looking down at where his thumbs almost met at the small of Buck’s back. “Look at how small you are. I could just—”

When he squeezed tightly, Bucky cried out, hole spasming reflexively around Steve’s cock and sending a bolt of heat right into Steve’s belly.

“That’s it, let me feel it. God, you’re built for this, aren’t you.”

The distance wasn’t cutting it, and Steve dropped down over Bucky’s back, plastering them together and hiding his face in Bucky’s soft shirt collar. There was just enough space to get his hand wrapped up tight around Bucky’s cock and stroke, working him from head to the base, letting his thumb dip down over those drawn-up balls, all soft and smooth and fitting so sweetly in his palm when he cupped them. For a long moment, he let his fingers slip further back, rubbing just behind, where Bucky had always been so sensitive before.

A soft little grunt answered that touch, and Steve pulled away. “Let me come, please,” Bucky asked.

“Yeah,” Steve said, dragging his hand back up until he had his hand fisted up tight around Bucky’s dick. He was ruthless with it, jacking Bucky hard and fast, merciless, finesse traded in for more hunger. He was no longer fucking up against Bucky’s prostate but just fucking himself in hard and fast, balls slapping up against Bucky’s taint and soft thighs, getting all worked up at the way Bucky’s little body was squeezing his cock tighter and tighter, like all that heat and pressure was endless.

When Bucky came, it was quiet and bitten off, hot come splashing all over Steve’s hand as Bucky pressed quiet whimpers into the marble vanity. Steve went nearly cross eyed, trying not to jackrabbit through the searing pulse of Bucky’s body clamping down over his dick again and again. He just ground himself deeper and further into the spasming heat, and when he finally came, it felt so good it hurt, unloading in a few deep, brutal thrusts.

Steve was shaking when he finally pulled out, barely holding the slippery condom as he eased himself free. He panted through tying a knot in it and tossing it in the garbage.

Bucky straightened up even more slowly, moving like all his joints were slightly too loose for his body. He fumbled with his shorts, and caught Steve’s eye in the mirror as he gently shuffled around, turning towards Steve.

“Do you want to shower?” Bucky asked, underwear mostly tugged up over his softening cock, shorts caught awkwardly around his hips. “There’s more than enough room.” Buck looked like he fucking meant it, too, like getting into the shower together wouldn’t make this even worse than it already was. It was bad enough he could see the laxness of a fresh fuck in Bucky’s body, the sleepy-happy softness of Bucky’s face and the hazy darkness of Bucky’s pretty eyes.

Steve pulled his pants up in answer, buttoning them as best he could without getting lube all over the fly. “No, I gotta get out of here.”

There was still a razor and a tube of something that said serum in the sink, but Steve washed his hands anyway, running hot water and soap all over them. He’d made a mess of the counter, from the opened first aid kit to the spilled toiletry bag, the messy splash of water from how angrily he was scrubbing away lube and come.

“Look, Steve, I think we ought to—”

“I don’t fucking want to, okay?” Steve finally said, looking up from the running water, the suds under his nails and at the webs of his fingers. “Just. I have to go. Take your shower.”

When Steve left with one last backwards glance, Bucky was still standing there awkwardly, sagging, somehow, shorts held up stupidly to one side. His mouth was parted in shock, and he didn’t say anything at all.

For one single minute, Steve was able to fool himself that it had been something like sadness on Bucky’s face, like he’d wanted to shower and clear the air, but by the time Steve was out of that house, he’d already remembered Bucky hadn’t given a shit about him for a long, long time.


	4. I could slow down for a little while

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gay sadness & gay bars in northern NY

Bucky’s stomach jumped when he heard the patio door open behind him, the sound reeling him back into himself. He wasn’t exactly sure what he’d been doing in the time since Steve left. Drifting in an ocean fifteen years wide, staring down at its unfamiliar depths. Trying to make sense of things, with only the lingering imprints of Steve’s hands on him, and the bruised up, empty feeling they’d left behind as tangible evidence any of it had actually happened.

In all the times he’d fantasized about seeing Steve again, thought about what he’d do or say if he ever got the chance, he’d never imagined it like this—rough and angry, hot and cold all at once. Steve hadn’t even let Bucky touch him. It had been as anonymous as any hookup he’d ever had, and as he’d watched Steve hitch up his pants and scrub his hands like he’d touched something filthy, Bucky felt twenty years old again, on his knees in some dirty club bathroom with a man who didn’t even know his name.

And yet, as Bucky turned to see who’d come outside, there was part of him that hoped it would be Steve standing there. That he’d shown up to shove Bucky against some flat surface again, make him beg for it. Even the awkward shame of it at the end was the most Bucky could remember feeling in longer than he wanted to admit.

But it was Loki, raising a sleek brow at him. “Expecting someone else?” he asked archly, not bothering to wait for an answer before gliding back into the house. “I brought hors d'oeuvres,” he said over his shoulder. “Thor should be along soon.”

“Hors d'oeuvres” turned out to be four bottles of wine, which to be fair, Bucky should have expected. In all honesty, he’d forgotten he’d invited Thor and Lo over for a working dinner, but it was just as well. He’d only spiral further if he was left alone tonight, and work was the best distraction. As was the astronomically expensive variety of wine Loki favored.

He accepted the glass of red Loki poured for him gratefully, and tried not to notice the assessing look he gave him over the rim of his own glass. “So I take it by the beard burn all over your neck you’ve seen Steven again.”

Bucky just managed to swallow his sip without choking, though he could feel the hot flush creeping up his neck, making his scraped up skin prickle and burn. “I still can’t believe you didn’t warn me he was here,” Bucky countered.

“If I’d known you were stupid enough not to google your ex before coming back to his _home town_ , maybe I would have. It’s like you’ve never seen a Hallmark Christmas movie. Are you even gay?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “You’ve never even had an ex, what do you know about it.”

“Exes, mortal enemies—I assume it’s the same general concept,” Lo said with a shrug.

The truth was, Bucky _had_ googled Steve. Of course he had; he was a human living in the twenty-first century. As far as Bucky could tell—and he’d tried just about every search term he could think of over the years—Steven Grant Rogers did not have a Facebook or Instagram or any kind of conveniently stalkable social media presence. The only thing Bucky ever found was an article in an indie art journal praising Steve’s “erotic, and intensely emotional” queer paintings. It had included a couple photos of his work, and the sight of them had filled Bucky with an unexpected sense of pride. Despite everything, he was glad for Steve, that he’d managed to make a life for himself doing what he’d always loved. The paintings were filthy in a way that should have clashed with Steve’s classical style, but even the lewdest of them conveyed a tenderness, and a sense of longing that Bucky felt even secondhand through the screen. It made him wonder, in a masochistic sort of way, who was inspiring that kind of intimacy in Steve’s art these days.

That was the last time Bucky googled Steve Rogers. He’d just assumed Steve was living somewhere with a thriving art scene—San Francisco, or even Brooklyn. Bucky’d spent more than a few interminable conference calls immediately following his discovery staring out his office window, thinking about what it would be like to run into Steve in some horribly twee Brooklyn coffee shop, or one of the gallery openings he frequented on the upper east side. He imagined their eyes meeting across a crowded room, a spark racing up his spine—but he never imagined Steve would be here, right where Bucky’d left him fifteen years ago.

“Why is he here?” Bucky asked, despite himself. “He had a full ride to RISD. Why would he come back? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe ask him that before jumping on his dick next time,” Loki deflected smoothly. “What’s for dinner? I don’t want to hear Thor bitch about how hungry he is while you faff about with your sauces and garnishes.”

“I didn’t jump on his dick,” Bucky grumbled, but turned to the fridge to grab the ingredients he’d thankfully acquired before he’d had all his brains fucked out. Thank you, Doris. “He jumped on mine. Or my—whatever, it doesn’t matter. They way he ran out of here, I’ll be lucky if he can manage eye contact without triggering his gag reflex next time.”

“Oh yes, because fucking a fit twink is so distasteful,” Loki said. “How will he ever go on?”

“Who’s fucking fit twinks?” Thor boomed from the front hallway, just before the door slammed hard enough to rattle the windows. Subtle, he was not.

“Biggest fucking ears of anyone on god’s green earth, I swear to Christ,” Loki murmured as Thor stomped into the kitchen. “Hello, dear,” he said, turning up his face to receive the kiss bearing down on him from his giant husband.

“Drive wasn’t too bad?” Thor asked, brushing Loki’s dark hair behind his ears.

Loki made a face. “Should let me take a helicopter next time.”

“We’re an eco-friendly company, Lo,” Thor admonished, turning to reel Bucky into a tight hug. He grinned when he pulled back, and tapped a finger on Bucky’s neck. “Ah, I see. The fit twink in question.”

Bucky flushed. “I’m too old to be a twink. And shut up. I’m mad at the both of you.”

Thor shook his head and patted Bucky’s cheek with a placating smile. “What’s for dinner? I’m starving.”

Loki gave Bucky an _I told you so_ look, and poured Thor a glass of wine.

They made idle conversation as Bucky cooked and Thor and Loki sat at the island. He’d known Thor his whole life, practically, and Loki since Odin and Frigga had married their freshman year of high school. They were his oldest friends, and had been together—whether they’d wanted to admit it or not—since they’d met at fourteen. But now, almost two decades on, gone were the days when Bucky and Steve could have made a running bet on whether they’d find them making out or murdering each other. They’d grown into themselves, grown together into something steady and settled that, these days, made longing twist painfully in Bucky’s chest.

It wasn’t jealousy, exactly. He didn’t want Thor’s big arm resting over the back of _his_ chair, or playing idly with _his_ hair. He didn’t envy Loki’s hand on Thor’s thigh or the droll way he finished Thor’s sentence and ruined his dumb joke. He just… _wanted_. He wasn’t sure what. His life didn’t leave much room for anyone else, and soon it would barely have room for himself. But there in that bright kitchen, two hundred miles from his real life, it was easy to let himself want. To pretend. Even if he knew too well how painful it was to pack those wants away when reality set back in.

“Okay,” he said, setting down plates in front of Thor and Loki and snagging the folder of documents sitting on the island. “Let’s go over the plans.”

* * *

He was halfway through his morning run and almost done catching up with Nat on the latest Project Insight developments when the doorbell rang. He rolled his eyes and pressed pause on the treadmill. “Hold on,” he said to Nat. “That must be Lo.”

“So early?” Nat said, the matching eye roll evident in her voice.

“I may have drunkenly offered him poached eggs every morning if he gave us another point on our fee,” Bucky admitted. “I didn’t think he was going to take me up on it, though.”

“Well, did you throw in hollandaise?”

“I didn’t specify, but I’m sure it was inferred.”

“That seems like an even trade, then,” she said. “You know what a slut he is for brunch.”

“Brunch, black velvet, his big dumb husband—the list is long and varied,” Bucky muttered, his voice muffled by his shirt as he lifted the hem to wipe the sweat from his face and flung open the door. “I was joking about the— _oh_ ,” he choked, seeing Steve on the doorstep. “Uh. Hi.”

“Is this a bad time?” Steve asked, looking Bucky up and down and making him acutely aware that he was dripping sweat and practically flashing him, his hand frozen in mid-air gripped around the hem of a ratty gray Harvard shirt.

“No!” Bucky said a little too quickly, dropping his hand. “I thought you were Loki. ”

“Invite him in, he sounds hot,” Nat said into his ear, startling him. He’d forgotten he still had his airpods in.

“I’ll call you back, Nat,” he said quickly, and shoved the earpieces in his pocket. “Sorry, I was on a call when you knocked. Do you want to come in?”

Steve’s face had gone all pinched and blank at the mention of the call, though Bucky couldn’t figure out why. But all he said was a quiet, “Thanks,” as he stepped past Bucky and paused just inside the entryway.

Bucky peered out at Steve’s truck in the drive before shutting the door. “No Molly today?”

Steve’s posture loosened a little. “No, I left her to laze at home and recuperate.”

Bucky frowned. “Is she okay?” She was such a sweet dog. He’d always wanted one, but growing up his dad would never allow it, and now… well, he wasn’t home enough for it to be practical.

“She’s fine—she just forgets she’s twelve and can’t run around like a crazy lady without feeling it the next day.” His smile was soft and fond, and it gave Bucky’s heart a little squeeze.

“Oh, same,” he said, leading Steve into the kitchen and feeling extremely aware of the way his back and thighs still twinged from their antics the day before. “Do you want something to drink?” He made a beeline for the fridge, praying for the strength to get through this awkward small talk without his body dispersing into a cloud of bees.

He grabbed a water for himself and peered over his shoulder at Steve, who was looking at him with an expression Bucky couldn’t quite read. His ears were pink and a muscle in his cheek ticked like he was clenching his jaw, but he wasn’t quite looking at him, eyes hovering somewhere around Bucky’s knees.

He cleared his throat and looked away. “No, I’m good.”

“Okay, well… have a seat if you’d like?” Bucky said slowly, coming to lean against the island and gesturing at the small kitchen table where Steve was hovering awkwardly, hands stuffed into his jeans and shoulders bunched at his ears. They were nice shoulders, Bucky’s brain couldn’t help but inform him, pulling attractively at the seams of his shirt. It seemed Steve still preferred his shirts a size or two too small, and Bucky could practically make out all the dips and curves of his broad chest through the soft black material. Bucky quickly dropped his eyes to the water bottle dripping condensation over his hand so he didn’t embarrass himself by making direct eye contact with the imprints of Steve’s nipples.

Steve settled into the chair made of polished pine and ran a hand through his floppy hair. It looked like it’d been desperately in need of a cut for about six months, but somehow it suited Steve. Softened him, in a way.

“Sorry for interrupting your call,” he said carefully.

Bucky waved a hand. “It’s just my morning catch up with Natasha—she’s my VP. No big deal.”

“Oh, you work together too?” Steve asked, frowning. “I didn’t realize.”

“Yeah?” Bucky said. “I mean, we’re friends too, but I met her through work. She keeps me from jumping off the roof most days.”

Steve nodded. “I’m glad you have a partner who supports you.” He swallowed. “Sorry if anything I did—I shouldn’t have…”

The lightbulb crashed over Bucky’s head. “ _Oh._ Oh, no.” His laugh bordered on hysterical, a sharp, unhinged peal in the otherwise quiet kitchen. “We’re not like, _together_. God. She would absolutely eat me alive.”

Steve’s face turned a very sweet shade of red. “God.” He ran a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry—I just assumed. Spent the night thinking I was some homewrecker. Jesus.”

Bucky choked back his laughter. “What even gave you that impression?”

Steve shrugged a little sheepishly. “You know, I’ve seen pictures of you two and—”

“Ah.” Bucky nodded, understanding dawning.

Steve shot him a glare. “It’s normal to google people. Everyone does it.”

Bucky gave him a pointed look. “I’m well aware, Mr. ‘ _Reinvigorating the Queer Erotic Art Scene_ ’.”

Steve looked down at his hands, the tips of his ears still burning pink. Bucky was not surprised to learn he still found that particular reaction unbearably endearing. “Went through your Facebook once. Lots of photos of you two together. You looked… close.”

“We are,” Bucky said simply.

Natasha was his right hand, and some days what felt like the only one in his corner. He often brought her as his plus one to business functions and other events—in a lot of ways, it was just easier. He was out and made no apologies for it, but in the largely white, cishet male-dominated corporate world in which he operated—even in Manhattan—there was an ocean of difference between the guy on the other side of the boardroom knowing you were gay, and actually seeing you _be_ gay.

So, yeah—Bucky could see how an outside observer could form that impression from his Facebook filled with photos of him and Nat arm and arm at events, or taking stupid selfies at happy hour. But Steve had very intimate knowledge of just how unlikely that was.

“But I’m gay? You know that,” Bucky said quietly. Fifteen years was a lot of time, but the thought of Steve forgetting that piece of him—when he’d been the first one Bucky’d really let see it—was devastating.

Steve frowned. “But—” He sighed and waved his hand, as though dismissing a thought. “Just—forget it. I shouldn’t have assumed.” He straightened his shoulders and looked Bucky in the eye for what felt like the first time since he’d walked in the door. “I want to apologize,” he said in his straightforward way, his chin lifted and face set in a way that made Bucky feel fourteen again, bashing himself against the brick wall of Steve’s moral code. “No matter what happened between us before, I had no right to treat you the way I did yesterday. I’m sorry, Bucky.”

“Hey, I was a very willing participant,” Bucky said, trying for a grin he knew probably came out as wobbly as his knees felt. “Stupid, but willing.”

Steve gave a soft laugh. “Yeah, well… all the same. I don’t… do that. It’s not how I do things.” He looked diminished somehow, shrinking inside himself, and Bucky was struck with the sudden, visceral urge to comfort him. He didn’t know if he was allowed, wouldn’t even know where to begin with this Steve. Every time he looked at him, it was like seeing double—the old Steve, _his_ Steve superimposed atop the one sitting before him, bone-weary and a little broken.

“Can I ask you a question?” Bucky said, moving to sit in the chair beside Steve. He drew his knee up and hugged it to his chest, feeling suddenly small and uncertain. When Steve nodded, Bucky swallowed hard and asked, “What did happen between us?”

Steve drew in a sharp breath. “Don’t,” he bit out. “Don’t pretend you don’t know, Bucky.”

“I know I wasn’t great at—”

“Just—please.” He hung his head, fingers rubbing at his eyes tiredly, sounding so worn down that Bucky couldn’t find it in himself to argue.

It was as though they’d lived two different versions of the same events. They’d both always been awful at keeping in touch when school started, they emails tapering off from every day to maybe once a month come October, but that year had been even worse. Steve’s emails had been sporadic at best, full of references to things Bucky didn’t recognize, as though he’d been dropped into the middle of an ongoing conversation and had to scramble to keep up.

And on Bucky’s end—he was no better. Those first few months at Harvard had been terrifying. He’d been out of his depth and barely managing to tread water, spending every day sick with panic at the thought of what his dad would do if he failed. He’d shut down, shut everyone out. Even Steve. He knew he’d been in the wrong, even then, but for Steve to have cut him off so cruelly—even Steve at seventeen, hot-headed and full of the vulnerable, sensitive kind of pride that came with it—had never made sense to Bucky.

His reaction now didn’t make sense either. Bucky kept turning it over in his head, wondering what he was missing. There was something there—a little thorn of _something_ digging itself under his skin; a half-formed thought just out of reach, like a word on the tip of his tongue.

Regardless, it was clear that whatever version of events Steve considered truth, he’d been carrying around just as much hurt as Bucky had for the last fifteen years. Bucky had gone this long without answers, he could wait until Steve was ready to talk.

“Okay,” he said quietly, watching Steve’s shoulders rise and fall with quick, sharp breaths. Tentatively he reached out, laying his hand on Steve’s rigid forearm. When Steve didn’t flinch away, he rubbed his thumb over the knobby bones of his wrist, feeling the texture of his dark hair scrape against his skin. “For whatever it’s worth, Steve, I’m sorry too.”

Steve blew out a breath after a moment, and turned toward Bucky. “Water under the bridge, right?”

“Doesn’t seem like that bridge’s been built yet, to be honest,” Bucky said.

Steve’s mouth curled at the edges. “I’m working on it. Seeing you again… it was a hell of a surprise, Buck.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, echoing Steve’s tentative smile. “I’m glad though, to get the chance. I’ve thought about you a lot over the years.” The admission felt like it took up all the space in the room, weighted and dangerous. He didn’t know if it would land as a grenade or an olive branch.

“Me too, Buck,” Steve said. Their eyes caught and held for a long moment, with what felt like fifteen years of things left unsaid stretching between them.

Steve’s eyes dipped to his mouth, and lower, fixing on Bucky’s drawn up leg, and Bucky felt Steve’s pulse quicken under his fingertips. “I do that to you?” he asked, voice gone a little rough.

“What?” Bucky felt a little dazed by the abrupt change in the atmosphere, the tension slipping into something softer, something that slunk through to the center of him, curling up warm and tight in his belly.

Steve reached out, dislodging Bucky’s hand on his arm, his thumb coming to rest high on Bucky’s inner thigh. “Oh,” Bucky breathed, noticing the finger-shaped bruise for the first time. “Yeah, guess so.”

“Always did have the softest thighs,” Steve said, almost absently, his focus on his thumb scraping rough and dry over Bucky’s sensitive skin. Bucky felt the sensation of it burn a path up his leg to his groin, settling deep in his clenched-tight belly. “Used to be soft everywhere.”

“Started working out,” Bucky said lamely, feeling every brain cell direct itself to the circumference of skin Steve was rubbing circles into, his thumb just barely pressing into the bruise, carving the barest indent into the soft, sore meat of him.

Steve’s hand slipped down to squeeze at Bucky’s ass. “Still soft where it counts, though.” Bucky made a little breathy sound at the rough touch, the way Steve’s thumb rested in the hot groove of him, almost but not quite over his hole through his thin running shorts. Steve’s eyes flicked back up to his, hot and dark and just as hazy as Bucky felt, like they were suspended in a single moment that didn’t exist outside this sun-warmed kitchen.

He drew his thumb up, pressing light circles into the tight skin behind Bucky’s balls. “Steve,” Bucky stuttered, feeling like he was falling and rooted to the spot at the same time. The touch was nothing—barely there—but for the way Steve was looking at him, cataloguing Bucky’s reactions with an intensity that made him feel lightheaded.

“Still go so easy for it, too,” Steve said, but there was no meanness in it. There was a quiet kind of reverence in his voice that made Bucky sure he was feeling the same kind of inexorable pull, memory and this moment blurring together at the edges.

Bucky glanced down, saw the thick ridge of Steve’s cock fattening up under his jeans. Proof that Steve was just as affected. In some distant part of his mind, he knew he shouldn’t, knew it would only complicate things further, but he couldn’t stop himself from sliding out of his chair and sinking to his knees on the cool wood floor. “Can I?” he said, meeting Steve’s wide eyes. Steve sucked in a sharp breath and nodded, spreading his legs so Bucky could shuffle into the warm space between his thighs.

He smelled the same, was the first thing Bucky’s brain supplied as he bent close and worked open Steve’s belt and fly. The same detergent his mom used, probably. There were a thousand memories that lived in that scent. He remembered sharply, the way it felt to be curled up in his bed the first night home from the lake, wrapped up in Steve’s threadbare red hoodie and breathing in the scent of him, missing him so much his whole body had ached with it. The way the gradual fade of the scent of Steve had been both disappointment and relief, when he’d had no choice but to stop wallowing and get back to the life that existed beyond Steve and their idyllic summers. The memory made him want to curl up like a cat between Steve’s legs, rub his face over the scent of him and breathe it deep.

He let himself nose at the crisp golden hairs running down Steve’s belly as he pulled down his jeans and underwear just enough to free his cock. His Steve had been a boy, lanky and sweetly awkward, all of him poised just on the cusp of his potential. The Steve in Bucky’s hands now was undeniably a man. He’d grown into himself; bigger, broader, with a weight in both physicality and demeanor that spoke of experience.

But when Bucky leaned down to put his mouth on the thick head of him, his taste was the same. Bitter, salt, and the clean scent of Steve’s skin rocketed into him, and he was both sixteen years old again, and thirty three—and neither version of himself could help the little moan of satisfaction when he sucked Steve deep and made him jerk and swear.

“Jesus Christ,” Steve grit out, looking down at Bucky with hot, half-lidded eyes, the blue of them so bright it seemed to sear right into Bucky. He reached out, rubbing a thumb over Bucky’s wet, stretched lips. “You have any idea what you look like like this?”

He did, actually. Knew how good he was at it too. He swiped his finger through the growing mess dripping down his chin, wetting it up and working his hand into Steve’s boxers to pet at his hole while he worked him over with his mouth. Steve hissed and clenched up, and then slowly blew out a breath, relaxing in increments.

“Fuck, Bucky,” he whispered hoarsely when Bucky pressed his wet finger in, working it into the plush, searing heat of him. His cock jerked in his mouth and Bucky moaned around it, the sound muted and loud in his head all at once. Steve’s hands wound into Bucky’s hair, gripping without guiding, his body bowed around Bucky, and Bucky felt consumed. He could feel Steve’s pulse on his tongue and around his finger, the fluttering clench of his hole and the catch in Steve’s breath when he took him deeper. He was surrounded in the heat of him, the scent of his sweat and his sex, the weight and taste of a man— _this_ man—on his tongue.

Bucky crooked his finger, rubbing at Steve’s prostate in time with the rhythm his mouth set, lost in the sound of Steve’s ragged breaths and the tremor of his thighs. He gasped when Bucky took him all the way into his throat and swallowed around the thick head of him, his hips jerking up and making Bucky gag and splutter.

“Shit, sorry,” Steve said roughly, moving his hands from Bucky’s hair to grip at the seat of his chair. Bucky blinked the tears out of his eyes and grinned sloppily around Steve’s cock, tugging at Steve’s right hand and placing it back on his head. With his own free hand, he gripped Steve’s hip and looked up at him, hoping he understood.

“God.” Steve choked out a breathless laugh, that made him clench around Bucky’s finger. “Yeah, okay, I remember.” He ran his fingers through Bucky’s hair, nails scratching at his scalp and Bucky’s eyes fluttered closed with the weight of Steve’s hand settling over the back of his neck. He pressed gently, and Bucky let himself be moved, felt the slow slide of his mouth over Steve’s cock, deeper and deeper until he just touched the back of his throat. Steve’s rolled his hips, pushing his cock in the rest of the way.

“Like that?” Steve whispered. Bucky made a small, affirmative noise, and then lost himself to the rhythm of it, going boneless as Steve’s body took him over. He worked his finger inside Steve, petting at his prostate as he swallowed and gasped around Steve’s cock, feeling him clench tighter and tighter until he jerked on his tongue and thrust deep, his body bowing over Bucky in a tremulous curve as he held him still and spilled down his throat.

Steve fell back into the chair and tugged gently at Bucky’s hair to nudge him off his oversensitive dick. Bucky pulled back, wincing when Steve hissed as he withdrew his finger. He couldn’t quite look at Steve; he felt suddenly exposed, kneeling on the hard floor between Steve’s still-trembling thighs, his face a wet mess, rapidly cooling with the distance between them. He was transparent as a soap bubble and felt just as fragile.

“You okay?” Steve asked when his breaths had evened out.

“Yeah,” Bucky said hoarsely, busying himself with putting Steve’s soft cock back into his boxers so he didn’t have to look at him.

“Hey.” Steve’s hands settled on Bucky’s biceps. They were so warm that Bucky shivered at the touch. “Come here,” he said gently, tugging Bucky up into his lap. He felt small, perched on Steve’s splayed thighs, caged by the breadth of his body. Steve kissed him, licking the taste of himself out of Bucky’s wet mouth, his hands running over Bucky’s hair and down his back. His hips jerked violently when Steve ran a hand over his hard cock, straining at the fabric of his shorts. He hadn’t even registered how hard he was until Steve touched him, and suddenly it was all he could feel.

“Let me—”

“Yeah,” Bucky gasped shamelessly, pressing his face into Steve’s neck as Steve tugged his shorts down and wrapped a hand around his cock. He was so wet and so close he didn’t even clock the absence of lube, just shuddered and gasped into Steve’s neck. A high pitched noise crawled out of him when Steve’s hand slipped into the back of his shorts, pressing up on the skin behind his balls and making sparks spill down his spine. He came with a breathless moan, jerking into Steve’s grip as he milked him through it.

Steve drew his clean hand up Bucky’s back, petting him as he shuddered through the aftershocks, and Bucky thought, with a painful little squeeze of his heart, how funny it was that they maybe they didn’t know each other anymore, but they still knew the shape of the other’s body by heart.

“Sorry I got come on your pants,” Bucky mumbled as he drew away from the warm curve of Steve’s neck.

Steve huffed a laugh, a sound Bucky felt more than heard. “That’s okay.”

When Bucky gathered the courage to look up from the wet spot on Steve’s thigh, he found Steve looking at him with a softness he hadn’t seen in fifteen years. It was probably just the effect of having his brains sucked out, but it kindled a little ember of hope in Bucky’s chest. Maybe they could forgive each other and—

He shook his head and climbed off Steve’s lap. And _what_. He’d only be here for another couple of weeks and then he’d leave, like he always had to. It didn’t—it _shouldn’t_ —matter what Steve thought of him, after all these years. Their lives would likely never intersect again. No matter what the part of Bucky who was still eighteen and hopelessly in love with the boy from the lake wanted.

“Do you want to borrow a pair of mine?” he asked, gesturing at Steve’s pants.

Steve grinned lazily up at him, still sprawled obscenely in the kitchen chair that Bucky would probably never be able to look at again without getting hard. “I think I might break a few decency laws if I tried to stuff myself in your little pants, Buck.”

His tone of voice, and the shitty smirk were so familiar, Bucky couldn’t help but laugh. “Fine, walk around in your come-stained big boy pants all day, what do I care.”

Steve laughed as he rolled to his feet, stretching his arms toward the ceiling. His shirt clung to the chest and Bucky made a mental note to get his hands on those tits next chance he got. Good lord. “Lucky for me my commute is non-existent, so I can swing home and change into some clean big boy pants on my way in.”

“Can’t believe we both ended up working with our parents,” Bucky said off-handedly, reaching for his water bottle.

He felt Steve stiffen beside him for a brief second before relaxing into a shrug that looked deliberately casual. “I don’t know if I should congratulate you for surviving that, or offer my condolences.”

Bucky laughed, handing the water bottle over when Steve gestured for it, trying not to stare as Steve tipped his head back and took a long pull. “Both is probably good.”

They stood awkwardly for a moment when the conversation lulled, both giggling nervously when Steve’s stomach growled and broke the silence. “I could make some breakfast, if you have time?” Bucky offered tentatively, trying not to recall the way Steve had left so quickly the day before.

“Oh, uh… sure,” Steve said, offering a tentative smile in return. “The kids can handle things on their own for a bit.”

“The kids?” Bucky asked, going to the fridge and pulling out some ingredients. “Help yourself if you want some coffee or anything else to drink, by the way.” He gestured to the nearly full pot on the counter.

“Oh, thanks,” Steve said, and went unerringly to the cupboard where they kept the mugs and poured himself a cup. Bucky still had that eerie feeling of seeing phantom echoes when he looked at Steve, past and present blurring right before his eyes.

“Billy and Teddy—uh, do you remember Jeff Kaplan, and Anelle? Their kids. Not together, though.” Steve settled into one of the island stools.

Bucky frowned as he cracked an egg, trying to remember. There’d been a lot of kids that had hung out with them at the beach, or ridden bikes through town with them—but for him, there’d only ever been Steve. “Anelle was the one with the green hair?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, blowing the steam from his coffee. “They’ve been working for me for a couple summers now. I think they’ve started making out on the clock though.”

Bucky snorted. “You’d be a giant hypocrite if you got mad at them for that.”

Steve shot him a grin. “Guess so. It’s cute, though. Seeing them dance around each other.”

“Ah, young love,” Bucky said, and they both froze for a moment, as though waiting for Bucky’s words to detonate.

“What are you making?” Steve asked when the moment passed. He wrinkled his nose at the spinach Bucky was chopping. “Better not be any kale smoothie nonsense.”

Bucky snorted. “Why would I make you, a person who I assume still exists on a diet of nothing but milkshakes and burgers, a kale smoothie?”

Steve shrugged and smirked. “You seem the type, is all.”

“Oh, conscious of my arteries and the size of my own ass?”

“Your ass is just fine, Buck.” Steve grinned.

“I know,” Bucky sniffed, setting a pan on the burner. “And you can thank the kale smoothies for it.” He deliberately threw a giant knob of butter—twice more than he really needed—into the pan, and then chucked all the vegetables in to sauté. “Hopefully your organs won’t seize up at the sight of some green vegetables in your omelette.”

“Sounds risky,” Steve said, but when Bucky pushed a plate in front of him a few minutes later, he inhaled it in nearly three bites. It should have been revolting probably, the proof that Steve had never developed proper table manners, but somehow it was endearing to watch him talk animatedly about the queer kids he clearly loved with a mouth full of egg and spinach.

Bucky was in so much goddamn trouble.

* * *

It felt like he couldn’t go anywhere without running into Steve. Yeah, the town was small, but Steve was at the gas station filling up his truck when Bucky pulled in. He grinned at Bucky and winked as he drove off, leaving Bucky flustered for the rest of the day. A little wound up, a little lonely.

He caught Bucky in the cereal aisle of the grocery, and pressed a big, warm hand to his back as he reached across him for the Raisin Bran. Which was so many crimes at once, Bucky couldn’t quite find the words, just gaped as Steve strolled away with a casual, “See ya, Buck,” on his way to the meat section.

“And then he showed up at my backdoor like a hungry alley cat yesterday,” Bucky griped, swallowing down the last of his wine and holding out his empty glass to Loki.

Loki snorted delicately as he poured. “Is that a euphemism?”

“No,” Bucky said. “Well, not on purpose.” He had pushed Bucky over the arm of the couch and licked him open before shoving his dick in deep, petting roughly at his tits before shoving two fingers into Bucky’s panting mouth, and consequently there’d been quite a mess all over the supple brown leather of the couch. He’d had a condom and a packet of lube in his pocket too, the presumptuous bastard.

“I’m still failing to see the issue,” Loki said. “You’ve needed a good dicking for—what’s it been? Over a year? You’ve got a bite mark that can be seen from space on your shoulder, and you look more relaxed than I’ve seen you in a decade. What’s the problem with a little vacation fucking?”

“The problem,” Bucky said, gesturing with his glass and sloshing wine over the rim. He sucked it off the back of his hand and continued, “the problem is it’s not just a little vacation dick, Lo! We have history. Did you know I thought I’d marry him when we were kids?” The memory was a knife between the ribs. “I can’t keep the two separate. I’m all…” he trailed off.

Being back in Eagle Inlet, with the ghosts of Steve Rogers past and present all around him, had him all twisted up inside, turning up the volume on the longing he’d kept muted for years.

“So stop sleeping with him,” Lo said.

“I don’t want to,” Bucky sighed petulantly, slouching back into the couch. The one he’d come all over yesterday afternoon. “He’s too good.”

“Steve Rogers is not the only good dick in the sea. He’s likely not even the only good dick in this backwards little lake. Go find a distraction.”

“That feels gross,” Bucky whined.

“God, you are such a romantic.” Loki rolled his eyes. “Do _something_ , in any case. I can only listen to you whine so much before I’m forced to stab you and put you out of your misery.”

Bucky flopped back on the couch and covered his face with a throw pillow. “Just do it.”

“Don’t tempt me. You know our conversations lately wouldn’t even pass the Bechdel test. How would you like it if I talked of nothing but Thor’s dick for days on end.”

Bucky drew the pillow away from his face hopefully. “Are you actually offering? Because that actually would be my distraction of choice.”

Loki laughed and poured himself the last of the bottle. “Not a chance.”

* * *

Bucky felt oddly nervous stepping into the Rogers Marina office. He knew there was a fifty-fifty chance it’d be either Steve or Sarah working, and he wasn’t sure what to do if it was Sarah. Did she know he was here? Did she hate him, just like Steve had? His heart already felt shredded at the possibility.

But instead, there was a sweet-faced blond kid manning the same worn wooden front desk, who gave Bucky a friendly smile and an overwhelming sense of deja vu when he walked in. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Bucky said casually, trying not to crane his neck to catch a glimpse of who might be sitting in the office just beyond the front register.

“You looking for Steve?” the kid asked. Up close, Bucky could see a faint hickey on his neck. Must be one of the infamous kids.

“Oh, uh,” Bucky stuttered lamely. “Was just going to say hi if he was around. Or Sarah, if she’s here.”

“Sarah?” The kid frowned and shook his head. “Uh, I’ll get Steve for you.” He walked down the hall and stuck his head in the open office door. “Some guy is here, looking for you or your mom,” he said, making no attempt to be quiet. “Dunno if he’s a salesman or what but he’s kind of hot, FYI.”

“Thanks,” Steve said, and Bucky could hear the wry note in his voice even down the hall.

He looked tired, was Bucky’s first thought. He was wearing his glasses, a tell-tale sign that he was too tired to put in his contacts, and his eyes beyond them were red-rimmed like he’d been rubbing at them for hours.

“Oh,” he said, stopping short with surprised when he saw Bucky. And from the look on his face, the surprise wasn’t altogether pleasant. “Hey, Buck.” He seemed a little wary, like he wasn’t sure what Bucky could possibly want from him at two in the afternoon. Bucky felt like he’d misstepped, crossed some invisible line he’d had no idea existed.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you if you’re busy,” he said, hoping that was all it was. “Just going to rent a boat for a couple hours, thought I’d say hi while I was here.”

“No worries,” he said evenly, but there was something off about his voice that Bucky couldn’t quite pinpoint. “Probably needed a little break from fighting with spreadsheets. Teddy, go ahead and set Bucky up with a rental on the house. You remember how to key that in?”

“Oh—no, it’s okay. I wasn’t looking for a discount!” Bucky protested. “I don’t mind paying.”

“I do,” Steve said, a little bit of an edge to his voice. “It’s my treat.”

“In that case, do you want to join me? Take a break from slaying Excel demons?” Bucky offered, feeling a little desperate and awkward, while the kid watched their exchange with the shrewd eyes of a tennis ref.

“Thanks, but they don’t pay me the big bucks to spend the afternoon on the lake,” Steve said, with a smile that didn’t quite match his eyes. The pointed _unlike some people_ was implied.

“Okay,” Bucky said, overly bright. “Enjoy your spreadsheets then.”

Steve nodded and clapped Teddy on the shoulder. “107 should be good for him, I filled her up this morning. See you around, Buck.”

_Not likely_ , Bucky thought pettily, but nodded politely at Steve anyway.

He tried to get Teddy to accept his credit card, but the kid wasn’t having it. He led Bucky out onto the docks, offering his hand to help him into the small boat and going through all the controls and safety features with the air of someone who could recite it with perfect inflection—down to the jokes about the life vests—in his sleep.

“Enjoy the lake,” Teddy said as he untethered the boat and watched Bucky jerkily back it out of the slot.

“You too!” Bucky called, and cringed at himself.

He drove out to a corner of the lake where it was blessedly quiet and still despite the busy Friday afternoon, and dropped anchor.

He’d felt restless and on edge all morning, like his skin was too small for his body. His blood buzzed, a monotonous, frenetic hum that persisted even after pushing himself through an extra mile on the treadmill. Nat was presenting the Insight plans to the city council that afternoon, and though he had every faith in her, it still burned like acid in his gut that it wasn’t him. He was proud of the way she was handling it, happy that his partner had been given the opportunity to take on such a high-profile client; he knew it meant that his dad respected her, and would open doors for her in the future. But it didn’t change how humiliating it was for him to have been shunted aside, ordered away as though he were some hysterical victorian woman sent to the seaside to calm her nerves.

He’d rescheduled another transition call with the PR team; couldn’t to bring himself to go through the motions of pretending this promotion was anything but a farce, a way for his dad to continue to control the company behind the scenes with Bucky as his mouthpiece.

Unable to concentrate on anything productive, and unwilling to intrude on Thor and Loki’s site walk with the contractor while he was wound this tight, he figured a quiet afternoon on the lake would do him some good. He was supposed to take this time to relax, after all. He set out his towel on the stern and laid down with his tablet, pulling up one of the many books he’d tried and failed to make headway on in the last few months. But it was hard to concentrate when he couldn’t stop replaying Steve’s customer service voice and his dismissive smile—as though that same mouth hadn’t been tongue deep in his hole a mere twenty hours ago. What the fuck.

He didn’t know what they were doing with each other exactly, but he felt like they’d been making progress. Maybe they hadn’t had a real conversation about anything that had happened between them yet, but Bucky figured they were slowly working up to it.

Maybe he was wrong.

Or maybe Lo was right. Maybe Bucky was romanticizing everything, and they were just fucking through the lingering attraction that had been simmering between them since they’d been teenagers. Maybe it didn’t mean anything to Steve beyond that.

Maybe it shouldn’t mean anything to Bucky either. But… it did. It wasn’t just that he liked Steve—this Steve that he was just starting to know, and it wasn’t his need for closure, not solely. It was that, once, he’d let Steve _see_ him—all of him, in a way he’d never trusted anyone else. He’d let Steve look inside his vulnerable, desperate heart, he’d given him all his uncertainties, his shame, and his truths—and Steve had held them. He’d looked, and he’d loved with an unwavering intensity that Bucky never thought to doubt.

And when he’d disappeared, it was like something had been ripped from Bucky, leaving behind an emptiness with ragged edges that had been impossible to suture cleanly. The scar Steve left behind had been jagged and deep, a reminder of what he’d had and a warning of what could happen if he ever let anyone that close again.

He’d reconciled himself to never knowing the _why_ of Steve’s disappearance, had pushed those hurts to the back of his mental closet, never to be examined closely again. But being with him now, dancing around their past, was like running a fingertip over scar tissue—lighting up all the long-dead nerves on the surface, but never reaching the deeper wounds beneath.

He didn’t know what to do with his emotions, couldn’t seem to separate what he was feeling now from the lifetime of nostalgia he’d held close like a secret. Maybe today’s reminder that Steve had spent the last fifteen years hating Bucky was what he needed to clear his head of romanticisms and start being practical. He’d be leaving again in just a couple weeks, and there was no use setting himself up for more misery in the future.

He didn’t want to have to get over Steve Rogers again.

* * *

He fussed over himself for an hour, lamenting his slightly sunburned nose and trying to get his curls to lay in an orderly fashion. By the time he’d wiggled into his tightest pair of jeans and zipped up the boots that gave him at least another two inches of height, he felt confident that no matter what experience the only queer bar in fifty miles would offer him tonight, it would be the distraction he needed.

The gravel lot was about what he expected, filled with pickup trucks of various sizes. His SUV didn’t even have four-wheel drive, and looked as out of place in the parking lot as he felt entering the bar. It was fairly packed, the music loud and the people even louder as they two-stepped on the small dance floor, or played pool in the back room, and Bucky suddenly felt exhausted.

He’d had no interest in actually hooking up with anyone, the thought of touching someone else in such proximity to Steve made his stomach twist with sick shame. But he’d thought he could indulge himself in the high of walking into a dimly lit dive bar and scoping out a target, the thrill of reeling them in. Instead, he just felt a little lost, and a little lonely as he slid into an empty stool at the bar and ordered a gin and tonic from the bartender.

He’d only managed a single sip before making direct eye contact with Steve Rogers at the other end of the bar. “Fuck,” he hissed, and Steve grinned at him lazily, clearly reading his lips loud and clear.

Bucky had seen Steve drunk exactly once before—when they’d snuck out to one of the coves with Thor and Loki and had a bonfire on the beach, passing around a bottle of rum Bucky’d swiped from the liquor cabinet. Steve’s cheeks had flushed the sweetest pink, his mouth perpetually curled in a loose grin and his eyes a soft and hazy blue, hardly able to look anywhere but Bucky.

He wasn’t looking away now, either. After a moment of thoughtful staring, Steve grabbed his half full glass and shuffled over to Bucky’s side of the bar. He didn’t swerve or stumble, but there was a loose-limbed quality to his gait and a flush on his face that told Bucky that was far from his first drink of the night.

“What’re you doing in my bar, Barnes?” he asked gruffly as he slid onto the barstool next to him, his tone softened by the teasing glint in his eyes over the rim of his glass as he took a sip. He was close enough, nearly looming as he leaned toward Bucky conspiratorily, that Bucky could smell the whiskey on his breath; sharp and warm.

He looked so good. The soft chambray button up looked like it just barely fit him, the shoulders bunching a little and the buttons doing their best not to pull over his chest. It made him look even bigger than usual. It made Bucky want to lean into him, let those big arms come around him and block out the rest of the world.

But he wasn’t going to be so easy for Steve, not after the way he’d been earlier. He wasn’t _that_ desperate.

“Same reason as you, I guess,” Bucky replied, taking a sip of his own drink. It was crisp on his suddenly very dry throat, and he was glad for the bracing cold of it.

Steve grinned. “Drinking away your troubles?”

“Finding new ones,” Bucky countered.

“Guess we’re both doing a good job of that,” Steve said, toasting Bucky before draining his glass, and gesturing with it toward the bartender. “Can I get another, Bobby?”

“Looks like you found yourself plenty of trouble tonight,” Bucky said, nodding at the refill the bartender slid toward him.

“Found you,” Steve mumbled as he took a sip. “You’re a hell of a lot of trouble, Barnes.”

Something about the way he said it, soft and a little affectionate, made warmth pool in Bucky’s belly. “How’s that?”

Steve shook his head, the movement slow and sloppy; he was clearly two sips from hammered. “Showing up in my town, looking like everything that shoulda been mine. Getting me all…” he trailed off, like he was searching for the word. “Churned up,” he said finally. “Like the lake, when it’s the color of your eyes. S’all choppy.” He tapped his fist against his chest, and Bucky had to up his estimation of Steve’s proximity to hammered. He was well beyond it. “You know?” Despite being a head taller than Bucky, he somehow managed to look up at him through his eyelashes, expression so earnest and sad that Bucky’s heart couldn’t help but turn over in a slow somersault and land with a thud at his feet.

“Yeah, Steve. I know,” Bucky said quietly, unable to keep himself from reaching out and cupping Steve’s face. He was hot like a furnace, and just the slightest bit sweaty. Steve turned his face into the touch and pressed a soft kiss into his palm, and Bucky felt everything in him buckle and sway. It was devastating, Steve’s sweetness. All the more painful because Bucky knew it was only whiskey behind his words.

Steve sighed, leaning his cheek into Bucky’s palm and smiling. “I’m drunk.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said with a laugh. “Caught on about the time you got all poetical about my eyes.”

“Shut up,” he said, smirking up at him when Bucky stood. “You got pretty eyes.”

“Damn right,” Bucky said, batting his lashes. “Now, let me get you home.”

“I can drive,” Steve protested, lurching to his feet.

“You absolutely fucking cannot,” Bucky said firmly, leaving some cash on the bar to cover their tabs. “I’ll take you in my car and we can come get your truck in the morning.”

“Can’t leave my truck,” Steve mumbled as they shuffled out the door, a wall of wobbling heat next to Bucky. “Registration expired. Forgot to pay it. Gonna get towed.”

“Alright then, I’ll drive your truck home.”

“S’a stick. You know how?”

Bucky bit back the obvious joke. “If I don’t, it’s your fault. You’re the one who taught me.”

“Oh, yeah.” Steve huffed a laugh. “Hey, you can sit on my lap again if you can’t reach the pedals.”

Bucky shook his head and pinched Steve’s side. Or tried to. The man was built like a slab of beef. “Just give me your keys, asshole.”

Steve tossed him the keys, and Bucky couldn’t even blame Steve’s drunken state for the fact that he came nowhere near catching them. He wasn’t sure he’d ever successfully caught anything in his life. He stooped to pick them up from the gravel, and when he straightened, Steve was leaning against his big red truck, leering at Bucky obviously.

“I can see all the way down your shirt, Barnes. You wear that titty shirt for me, honey?”

Bucky flushed at the pet name. “I didn’t even know you’d be here,” he said defensively.

Steve narrowed his eyes and reached out and grabbed a fistful of Bucky’s shirt, reeling him in gently. “So you wore a titty shirt for someone else,” he said, voice low as he nosed at Bucky’s neck.

“Maybe,” Bucky said a little breathlessly, just to see what Steve would do.

It turned out, Steve would bite him hard on the little curve connecting his neck and shoulder. Bucky moaned as his legs buckled, and Steve spun him easily, pressing him up against the side of the truck and shoving a thick thigh between his legs. Bucky was caught between the cool metal at his back and the hot brands of Steve’s hands on his skin as he ran them up Bucky’s shirt and swiped rough thumbs over his nipples.

“Fuck, Steve,” Bucky hissed, unable to help arching into the touch, his body thrumming at the way Steve just _handled_ him.

“Used to have the softest little tits, you remember?” Steve mumbled into his neck. “Always pressing up against your shirts, jiggling a little when you walked. Drove me crazy.”

“I was just fat,” Bucky protested weakly.

“Nah, you were sweet,” Steve said, sucking kisses along his jaw. “Sweetest thing I’d ever seen, and you were mine. Couldn’t believe it.”

“Hey,” Bucky said, tugging on Steve’s hair so he’d look at him. He swallowed hard against the knot of tears gathering in his throat. “You were mine too. I loved you more than anything.”

Steve’s face crumpled and he dropped his head onto Bucky’s shoulder. “Not enough.”

“Steve, can we—”

A group of people stumbled out of the bar, laughing loudly and startled them away from each other on instinct. A few of them catcalled good naturedly, but it was too late. The moment was ruined. Just as well. Steve was in no shape to have this conversation, no matter how laid bare he seemed.

The drive back to the lake was quiet, the classic rock station playing low, and the water bottle Steve was nursing sloshing with every turn. Bucky risked a glance at him every so often, the passing streetlights lighting up his profile as he stared out the window pensively. Shadows and intermittent light, that’s what Steve had become. Locked up tight in himself, cracked open for only the briefest moments. It made Bucky so fucking sad. Had he done that to him?

“Hey, turn left at the next light,” Steve said after almost twenty minutes of silence, nearly startling Bucky into stalling the truck.

“Okay,” he said, assuming Steve was directing him to his house. He followed the next few directions, frowning when the road suddenly ended with a low fence at the end of a dirt road. “Where—” he started, but Steve was already climbing out of the truck.

Bucky could barely see in the dark; there were no streetlights on this stretch of road, and if he’d been with anyone but Steve, he’d probably assume he was about to get serial killed. But it turned out, Bucky would follow Steve just about anywhere, even down a dark dirt road in the middle of the night.

Steve grabbed for Bucky’s hand, leading him through a patch of sea grass so tall it brushed Bucky’s knees, and onto a rocky beach, pebbles skittering under their feet as they walked. The clouds took that as their cue to clear, sending Bucky’s heart careening into his throat as the moon lit their path and the realization dawned. “Steve,” he said shakily, stopping in his tracks.

But Steve just tugged him along the last few steps, until they were standing in front of the copse of trees lining the small cove. “Haven’t been back here since that last time,” Steve said quietly. He reached out, rubbing a thumb over the words carved into the gnarled trunk of big white pine.

_SGR + JBB_

“I can’t believe that’s still here,” Bucky whispered, reaching for the cool, damp wood, afraid to actually touch it. “I figured you would have cut it out or something.”

“Couldn’t,” Steve said simply. He sat down on the sand, drawing up his knees and staring out at the surf.

Bucky sat beside him, mirroring his pose. “Thank you,” he said softly.

Steve gave a bitter laugh. “Don’t fucking thank me. Believe me, I thought about it. Just didn’t have the stomach to come back here.”

Bucky physically flinched at his words. “What did I do, Steve?” he pleaded. “What made you hate me so much?”

There was a heavy pause, as though all the air were being sucked out of the space between them, and then Steve detonated. “You left me!” Steve shot up to his feet, sending a spray of pebbles flying, and towered over Bucky. “You said you loved me, and then you disappeared. My mom was dying and you couldn’t even answer a fucking email, Bucky!” He was panting, arms flung wide and face full of a pain Bucky hadn’t known existed.

“What?” Bucky choked out. “I’m sorry—wait, just give me—” he said, his voice rising on a note of panic when Steve spun away with a disgusted sound. He scrambled to his feet, reaching out a hand to touch Steve, and then thought better of it. “Steve, I didn’t know. I swear to you. Please, will you listen to me?”

Steve’s shoulders stuttered with a ragged exhale and he nodded, but he didn’t turn around. He didn’t walk away either, and Bucky steadied himself. “I didn’t know, Steve. I swear to god I didn’t know. Right before we were supposed to head to the lake that summer, my dad got me this big internship—”

“I know,” Steve bit out. “Your dad told me you and your _girlfriend_ were busy working in the city and couldn’t make it.”

“What?” Bucky shook his head. It didn’t make any sense. “He said—but I was in Munich? I got the call about the internship right as the semester was ending and then I was literally on a flight like eight hours later. There was no—I’ve never had a girlfriend. Why would he say that?”

Steve turned around slowly, his fists still bunched at his sides, his expression appraising, as though assessing Bucky’s face for the truth. “Your dad was an asshole who didn’t like you fucking townie trash,” he said finally. Bucky flinched at hearing Steve call himself that, but he couldn’t argue; his dad had said as much to Bucky over the years. Said worse that last summer, when he’d caught them making out on the deck. “Doesn’t explain why you disappeared. Even before the summer, you barely answered any of my emails.”

“I know I was bad at keeping in touch—I won’t make any excuses for that. Those first couple semesters, I was drowning. Out of my league and terrified, and I just...shut down, I guess. I missed you so much, and I was so scared, but I didn’t know how to talk to you without it all spilling out. And I felt—I don’t know, embarrassed? I was an idiot.” He felt the echoes of that frantic panic, and the gut-deep shame he’d been afraid to show to anyone—even Steve. “And then—it was like everything happened at once. My mom ran off to South Beach with some guy, and I got shipped off for the summer because my dad couldn’t stand the sight of me.” He had his mother’s face, and his dad had never forgiven him for it.

“But Steve, I barely got any emails from you that year. The last one I had was just the usual stuff, all you’d said was your mom was going in for some testing and you didn’t know what for. I tried to reply, but it bounced back. Then I tried calling the marina, the house—nothing. And I just… took the hint. I figured you got tired of waiting for me to get my shit together. I couldn’t blame you for that.” Tears were sliding down his cheeks now, and he didn’t have the energy to swipe them away. “If I had known Sarah was dying, Steve, I would have been here. I swear to you I would have.”

Steve was frowning down at his feet. “I wrote you nearly every week, Bucky. That whole year, I was sick with missing you, feeling like you were forgetting about me and trying to hold your attention. The last email I sent…” He blew out a breath, his face contracting with the pain of the memory. “There’s no way you could have mistaken it for anything but me begging you to be there for me.”

Bucky tugged a hand through his hair. There was a low drone of dawning anger pounding at the base of his skull, and he noticed, dimly, he was shaking, cold all the way down to his bones in a way that had nothing to do with the breeze coming off the water. “I don’t know what to say,” he whispered hoarsely, feeling a sick kind of panic seep into him. “I didn’t get that email. I don’t know what happened, or how to make you believe me. I would have done anything for you, dropped everything to be there for you. It kills me that you went through that alone.”

It broke him to think of it, Steve standing by, stoic and so alone while Sarah slipped away. Abandoned on two fronts. It made Bucky’s stomach turn to think of how many nights he’d wallowed in the misery of a broken heart when Steve had been burying his _mother_. He should have done more. Tried harder. Flown home, driven out to the lake and confronted Steve face to face.

But he’d been afraid. Being loved by Steve had only ever felt safe—felt _believable_ —because it had an expiration date. He didn’t know how to believe in the concept of someone wanting him forever—no one else ever had. But for a few weeks out of every year, he could let himself pretend. That was his true failing; his inability to put his faith in Steve completely, when he’d done nothing to deserve Bucky’s mistrust. Steve deserved better—he’d always deserved better than Bucky.

“I’m just so fucking sorry, Steve.” He didn’t know what else to say. He felt emptied out, cold and defeated. His chest ached, ribs creaking under the weight of everything they’d lost. Nothing about any of this made sense, but he couldn’t focus on unraveling the tangled knot of it with Steve looking at him with his pain written so stark across his face.

Steve stared at him for a long moment, and then nodded slowly. He sat down in the sand heavily, like his legs had been cut from under him, and blew out a long, ragged breath. “Okay,” he said hoarsely. “I believe you.” He buried his head in his hands, raking his fingers through his hair. “I just don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know what to _do_ with all this.”

“Tell me what you need, Steve,” Bucky said desperately, falling to his knees in front of Steve. “I know there’s nothing I can do to make this right, but I’ll do whatever you need.”

“I don’t know,” Steve said, lifting his head. He was looking through Bucky, hollow and exhausted and more lost than Bucky had ever seen him. “I’ve been carrying all this around for so many years, and now I don’t know—it’s like—you ever seen a piece of rotted wood? You try to take the nails out, and no matter how careful you are, it just splinters around them even worse.” He looked up, swallowing hard. “I’m rotten inside, Buck. And you’re trying to pull out these nails that’ve been dug in so deep in me and I’m just—it feels like I’m breaking. Like I’m gonna crack open without them holding me together.”

His voice broke on a sharp inhale and Bucky couldn’t stop himself from leaning forward and wrapping his arms around him. He was shaking, breathing in short, jagged breaths and all Bucky could do was hold him as tight as he could and whisper over and over, “I’m so sorry, Steve. I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” Steve whispered eventually, his arms coming around Bucky and pulling him in close, pressing his wet face to Bucky’s neck. “I’m sorry too, Buck.”

“Don’t apologize to me,” Bucky ground out. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Steve muttered as he pulled back, and Bucky choked out a wet laugh. Steve shivered, grimacing. “Fuck, it’s freezing.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. He stumbled to his feet on numb legs and held out a hand to haul Steve up. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

The trudged back to the truck in silence, a careful distance between their bodies. The drive home was filled only with Steve’s quiet directions and the clicking of the turn signal as Bucky pulled onto a familiar stretch of road. “I didn’t realize,” he said, when he pulled into the drive of the small red cottage.

Steve shrugged, staring out the windshield at the house. “Didn’t see any sense in moving when I wasn’t going anywhere.”

“It’s a good house,” was all Bucky could think to say. He remembered it being small and warm, packed full of the clutter of everyday life that had seemed so novel to Bucky at the time. A tumble of shoes at the front door, a pile of unopened mail on the dining room table. Sarah humming to herself as she took out a pan of chicken nuggets from the oven, ruffling Steve’s hair and grinning at Bucky over his shoulder when Steve grumbled at her. There’d been love in that house, and Bucky had felt a shameful kind of envy for it then, even as he’d hoarded the moments he got to spend in its proximity.

He hoped Steve could still feel the echoes of that love now.

“Call me when you get up,” he said to break the silence. “I’ll come drop off your truck.”

“Okay,” Steve said, pushing the passenger door open. He slid out clumsily, and paused for a long moment, as though trying to make up his mind about something. “Do you want to come in? Stay, I mean.”

Bucky swallowed hard. The easy answer was yes, but he knew it could so easily go sideways in the cold light of morning, without the whiskey to smooth things over. Steve needed time to process everything, and he didn’t want to make it any harder on him. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” he said carefully.

Steve exhaled long and slow. “I don’t want to be alone tonight, Buck,” he said quietly, and Bucky knew how much it cost to admit that to him. “We don’t have to do anything, just—please.”

“Okay,” Bucky said, throwing the truck into park and climbing out. He’d have sooner walked over glass than deny Steve anything when he looked that bare and broken. “Whatever you need.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa! We're two-thirds done, can you believe it? Next week the last two chapters go live. Thank you so much to everyone that has been reading along with us as we post. We're in the home stretch now!


	5. get back to loving each other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mornings are for lovers

When Steve rolled out of bed at the crack of dawn, it was with bitterness in his mouth and a sour heaviness in his belly, shoulders hung low with the absolute certainty he’d been nothing but a jackass all night long. He watched himself in the mirror as he scrubbed out the funk of too many jack-and-cokes out of his teeth, and he saw a man that was old and tired around the eyes, a man that had been hollowed out and broken and _rotting_ for a long, long time, and was starting to look the part.

A whole ten minutes in the shower and even if he felt a little better physically, he still felt an ache inside, somewhere the steam of a shower and the blister of too much mouthwash couldn’t touch. God, he’d have to drag himself to Bucky’s again, another apology percolating in the back of his throbbing mind. _Sorry I got drunk and made you drag me out of a bar, sorry I brought you to the cove and sorry I made you hear anything I had to say about the last fifteen shitty years of my life._

God, even Molly must be sick of him. He hadn’t seen her once since he’d gotten up.

Steve dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and shuffled his way downstairs. He was trying to remember if he had anything better than cheap granola bars in his cupboards when he found his sink full of water, a pack of bacon still in its plastic, thawing out. There was a bowl with flour in it, a couple of loose measuring cups. He could feel his brain firing, but nothing added up. This wasn’t the sort of thing he’d do drunk, for one, and for two, the bacon was only half thawed.

The house was quiet, but sure enough, the sound of Molly’s tags jangling drew Steve down the hall, down to Steve’s childhood bedroom, where there had been sleepovers and forts, where the two of them had roughhoused and kissed and where Steve had spent years and years dreaming of Bucky.

Now, though, it was Steve’s makeshift studio; the early morning light he’d hated as a sleepy teenager was the best thing about the space now. The whitish-yellow of morning draped over the painting on the easel now, the blush of early light blooming through Bucky’s uncombed hair, dark curls in disarray like a half-hearted storm cloud. Bucky’s loose shirt from last night was wrinkled. He was slouched on Steve’s stool, turning a dry paintbrush over and over in his hands, looking at the still-drying paint on Steve’s latest work in progress. Molly was sprawled on her belly, using Bucky’s feet to prop up her chin and looking happy as a clam.

“It’s me, isn’t it,” Bucky said, not quite asking nor turning to look at Steve.

“A little, yeah,” Steve agreed.

The drawing had been sketched in for weeks; now it was just the tedious absorption of layering in the oil paint until color took proper shape. It was a little more than half done, the background still filmy and the man’s features just coming into focus. It wasn’t quite the face that had given it away, though, but the hands, loose against the man’s flushed, bare chest. The hands were just like Bucky’s, square but slim, identical down to the hooked scar between two knuckles from a misguided attempt at fishing when they were thirteen.

“You know,” Bucky said, “you can barely see where you got me with that fish hook anymore. Scar’s all but gone now.”

“You mean when _you_ got you with a fish hook,” Steve said automatically, falling back into the rhythm of an old, circular argument. “Jesus, that lure was for pike. You bled like crazy.”

Bucky smiled, half of one, at least. “And then we ripped it out, made it worse, and you wrapped my hand up in your shirt and held my hand all the way back into town.”

Steve remembered. Of course he did. The memory of that, and a thousand other things, had been tearing Steve open from the inside out ever since Bucky had come back into town. It made perfect sense for that scar to have shrunk, to have changed with time. And here Steve was, holding onto fifteen, twenty year old hurts and thinking they’d be the same people after all these years. Steve had held Bucky’s hands in his, and still hadn’t seen the way time had changed them.

“Anyway,” Bucky said, getting up from Steve’s stool and placing the paintbrush back onto the stained stable next to crushed tubes of pigment. Steve realized he’d never replied—he’d left Bucky hanging on that story of them holding hands. “I was going to make pancakes and bacon, if that’s okay. You ought to get something in your stomach.”

It was like breathing through a hurt to reach out and snag Bucky by his slender waist, to pull him close enough to see the tired look in his eyes and the tight, uncomfortable set of his pretty mouth. Their thighs brushed, bellies touching as they leaned into each other in the doorway.

Steve tipped his head a little and did his best to meet Bucky’s eyes. “I’m sorry for how I’ve been acting. How I treated you last night. I’ve spent all these years thinking I didn’t mean shit to you and now… I don’t know. Everything’s come undone.”

The stiff distance melted from Bucky’s shoulders and Steve could feel him sigh as Bucky leaned in, resting his face against Steve’s shoulder. Bucky’s arms hugged Steve’s waist, pulling them closer together. “I feel really sad about the last fifteen years,” Bucky said. “We lost something, didn’t we.”

Closing his eyes, Steve rested his chin on top of Bucky’s soft, messy hair. Bucky smelled warm and salty, the last notes of his cologne lingering on his body. “Yeah.”

There was more to say—there always was, with only months of summer and years of silence—but Steve didn’t say anything else. All that rotting anger had been stripped away, and he found, in the echoing silence within, a wellspring of sadness. For Bucky. For himself. For the boys they’d been and had lost along the way.

Their bodies shifted together easily. It felt like instinct, to pull back just enough, to lower his head and kiss Bucky, to kiss like they were in love, because maybe, in a way, they still were and always would be. It was sweet and hungry, a sweltering around his heart, an ache where Bucky’s fingers touched his skin that made Steve feel lightheaded.

“Come upstairs with me.”

They held hands all the way through the house. Steve saw the blankets on the couch, the indent on the throw pillow Bucky had used; on the way through the kitchen, he looked again at the bowl of flour and the bacon waiting to be cooked. They held hands on the stairs, Bucky walking slowly behind but never letting go.

In the bedroom, Steve undressed Bucky first: he pulled Bucky’s shirt up over his head and stooped to kiss a gorgeously pink and puffy nipple; he pulled Bucky’s pants down and palmed the soft insides of his thighs, squeezing until he could hear a hushed whimper.

He laid Bucky down on the bed with the curtains slightly parted, the light making his body glow. They watched each other as Steve stood beside the bed and peeled himself out of his clean clothes, and they looked at each other as Steve climbed into the bed, crawling between Bucky’s spread thighs. Steve opened Bucky up with his mouth, gently licking him until he could ease in a couple shaking fingers, pushing into that tight heat until it was loose and hungry, sucking at his fingers.

The sun fell in Steve’s eyes as he spread Bucky’s thighs around his hips and eased inside until he was swallowed up by it, until he could feel Bucky’s thighs shaking around him, muscles taut with the lovely stress of sex. Steve couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything, so he dropped to his elbows and breathed in the smell of Bucky’s hair, citrus and sweet, the smell of his own sheets and Bucky’s body. He could only calm when he felt Bucky’s fingers combing through the still-damp hair at the back of his head, scratching gently at his scalp.

Everything after that was slow and desperate, a hello and a goodbye all at once. They kissed until it hurt to do so, until Steve’s mouth was sore. Bucky clutched fistfuls of Steve’s hair, he dug his nails into Steve’s shoulders and squeezed his whole body up tight and sweet, and Steve kept going, longer than he thought he could, unable to stop.

Afterwards, they clung together, Bucky’s head on Steve’s chest. It was hot in the room, but he couldn’t bring himself to untangle, to end the dream.

_What now_ , Steve wanted to ask.

Instead, he used his clean hand to gently wipe away the wet at the corners of Bucky’s eyes. He kissed Bucky’s cheek. He was seventeen again, in a way, enjoying one last, golden summer.

* * *

Even late into the summer, the sun would come up so startlingly early Steve couldn’t help wake early, propping himself up on one elbow to part the curtains, watching the fog recede from the water like a lover saying his slow goodbyes. He’d lived on the water all his life, and now, more than ever before, there was something maudlin about the way it looked first thing in the morning, unbroken by the day, still dark around the edges where dawn had yet to reach.

Molly would wake up early with him, nose pressed to the window pane to look for ducks. She was half the reason he’d roll from bed so early, so happy to see the day that Steve could feel it in her wiggly warm body, ears twitching as she listened to the lake.

Sometimes they went on long runs while it was still cool; sometimes Steve set Molly loose in the yard while he scrambled some eggs and burnt some bacon; sometimes Bucky was in bed with him and they curled up tight together. Sometimes Steve rolled out of bed and went to work, too busy for the pull of bed.

But a lot of mornings, Steve painted.

There was a wistfulness to summer mornings spent painting; no matter how early he woke, there was never enough _time_ before the day demanded. But he was drawn to it, morning after morning, drugged by an empty belly and the smell of mineral spirits, fingers kissed by oil paint and wrist stiff from holding the brush. He loved and hated it, overwhelmed by art in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time, like the sheer act of creation was sickness and cure all at once, a painful renaissance of his own talents. There hadn’t been a summer since his mother had died where Steve had made so much, so easily, so well.

The morning was spent on mixing just the right shade of ivory, testing the subtle shades of shadow playing on a hand clenched in a pillow. He liked the forgiving nature of oils, the way one color could be eased into another in ever-thickening layers.

There was more and more of Bucky in this summer’s paintings: a swollen mouth, drenched in come; the bare crease of a bruised thigh; a tight, darkened nipple. Steve found himself drawn to blues, to ivory lace and plush pinks. Sex bloomed with each stroke of paint, longing palpable even in the least overt works. Shadows lingered deeply in the corners, the folds, the places where two bodies met; light gleamed on the sweat of an overworked body, on darkened, hazy eyes.

Bitterness had kept him from painting Bucky; even the shadows and remembrances had been enough to make the paints go sour, stiff and flat. Years of his life had gone ignored, sealed away, and now he was peeling back the bandage and looking at the fifteen year old scar underneath. It turned out, like the scar on Bucky’s hand, it wasn’t quite as garish as he’d thought.

At the end of the morning, when his phone alarm dragged him out of it, Steve looked back on what he’d done, blue bruises pressed into narrow, strong wrists. The morning light was falling beautifully, softer but brighter, still at a glorious slant, and before he could think too much of it, Steve took a picture, a close up of the slowly drying paint.

_Hey Sam,_ Steve typed out, attaching the photo to an email. _Looks like I might have something for you before christmas after all..._

* * *

August was when summer deepened from bright and white hot sunlight into a golden heat, a slow-moving dip into barely cooler nights and hazier days. The humidity felt syrupy, especially when two bodies were touching. The lake was always humming with boats, everyone eking out every last moment they could as September crawled closer.

When they were kids, it had been easier to piece together hours and moments—for sex wherever they could get a couple minutes of privacy, for bike rides into town for milkshakes, for laying out on the dock at night and sharing a lukewarm beer they’d stolen from Bucky’s parents’ fridge.

It turned out they’d both grown up into the sort of people that carried their responsibilities around with them all the time. Bucky took work calls from the earliest part of morning until it was late at night, even in bed, peering into his computer screen in such a way that the laugh lines around his eyes looked haggard. Steve spent the day hours on odd carpentry jobs and managing the marina; nights were spent on the paperwork he hadn’t gotten around to. They scraped together their minutes and hours and stolen afternoons and late nights, but Bucky’s cell phone was always buzzing and Steve always had a post-it note or two stuck to his wallet, a never ending to-do list.

But they made time. They held hands, walking Molly along the beach in town and tossing her frisbee into the waves. Bucky cooked complicated dinners they ate out by the water, leftovers wrapped up for Steve to take to work the next day. Steve started fires in the yard, and they curled up on the patio sofa to watch the stars peek out at them. They fucked—in Bucky’s bed, Bucky’s kitchen, Steve’s bed, Steve’s backyard, the marina, in the truck parked behind the hardware store—and each time it got better.

They made time, they kept making time, and yet August kept wearing away, the end of summer always lingering in the back of Steve’s mind.

* * *

_FROM: Sam Wilson <executivedirector@redfalconartistco-op.org>_

_TO: Steve Rogers <sgr.art@gmail.com>_

_DATE: August 04_

_SUBJECT: RE: New Art_

_Hey man! I hadn’t thought I’d hear from you until at least November. Good to see summer hasn’t gotten you down yet._

_The gallery’s been doing well this season—weather’s good, lots of walk-ins, lots of regulars. Even had a guy ask if there was anything new from you and I had to tell him we probably wouldn’t get anything in until fall/winter._

_So imagine my surprise when you sent me that picture the other week! Let me know when it’s done setting and I’ll get a shipping label sent your way. I’ve already got a perfect spot picked out for it, right where the light comes in every evening. It’s beautiful work, man. Hate to say it, but you’re getting even better, you asshole._

_I know I keep asking you and you always turn me down... But at the end of summer, Peter, that photography kid I was telling you about, he’s off to Canada because he finally got a job with Nat Geo. There’s a spot in the Co-op open and we’d love to have you, man. There’s space for you and Molly, and all the studio time you can stand. All you have to do is put in a few hours a week running the gallery and store, making nice with the rich people. I know I’ve said it to you before, but you owe it to yourself to make yourself happy, Steve. At least think about it before you email me back and tell me no._

_Give me a call when you’re actually free. It’d be good to catch up._

_Sam Wilson  
_ _Executive Director  
_ _Red Falcon Artist Co-Op  
_ _Providence, Rhode Island_

* * *

The Odinsons had a big house on the same end of the lake as Steve, where it was mostly quiet, thick with trees and thin on neighbors. It was a colossal A-frame with a glass front overlooking the lake and a multi-tiered deck that sprawled gracefully along the rocky waterfront, the gardens lush and green, the trees grandfatherly and settled, casting waves of shade over the sunny decks.

It was, according to Thor, the only one of the Odinson residences that Thor had been allowed to decorate to his own tastes, which is why it looked like the unholy union of a vikings-themed romance novel and a pricey Swiss chalet. Thor loved it, Loki complained about it, and Steve just liked to listen to them bicker while he drank their expensive beer.

Steve had shown up at their house around dinner time, fresh ears of corn in a plastic bag and a stack of papers jammed into a manilla envelope. Thor had immediately pulled a beer out of the fridge and thrown it at Steve’s head, cheering when Steve caught it one handed.

“Thor, could you please pretend to care about the floors?” Loki asked, sprawled out at the island, not once looking up from his phone. “What if he hadn’t caught that?”

“Surely the whole house would need to be demolished,” Thor said, emphasizing his point by cracking his own bottle cap off on the edge of the well-used butcher block counters.

Loki looked up, rolling his eyes. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.” His sharp gaze swung over, looking Steve over from head to toe. “Steven, how are you? You’re looking… refreshed. Like you’ve actually had sex in the last five years.”

Thor reached across the island and tugged the tail of his husband’s french braid. “Subtle, Lo. And while we’re at it, when will our other guest be joining us?”

“He should be here soon,” Loki said. “Last I heard, he was sitting at the bottom of his closet, on a call with Nat and struggling to get the complimentary iron to work properly but he’s since sent me a picture of a daringly wrinkled linen shirt so I think he’s since given up.”

Thor looked around the kitchen, cataloging progress. “Steaks are resting, grill is on, Bucky’s supposed to be bringing dessert… All that’s left is the corn and the...”

“No,” Loki said automatically.

“Please?” Thor said, lifting a giant yellow summer squash in one hand and a zucchini in the other.

“I don’t want to.”

Thor put them both down in front of Loki, and scooted an extremely sharp and fancy looking knife in Loki’s direction. “Really thin. No one slices zucchini like you,” Thor said, pressing a kiss to Loki’s head. “We’ll be out back husking corn!”

“I hate you,” Loki grumbled, but he was already reaching for the knife.

There was a pair of massive glass doors in the glass wall of the A-frame, and Thor led Steve out of the house and down a couple tiers of the deck until they were close to the water, close enough to hear it splashing up on the shore. They settled back in a pair of adirondack chairs and dumped the corn and an empty colander between them, but didn’t get to work right away.

“Here,” Steve finally said, handing over the big envelope.

Thor took it, setting his beer down. Steve looked away, staring out over the unimpeded view of the water, the silky blue-green waves as they fluttered in small but restless ways.

“Steve—”

It was too much to hear, so Steve cut him off. “I’m selling the marina to you at the end of the summer.”

“You’re sure, then.”

Steve looked over, meeting Thor’s eyes, catching the sincerity in his friend’s face, grateful that Thor hadn’t asked if Steve was sure, but had known it. “Yeah, I am.”

“I’ve been asking for years. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take it. But why now?”

“You remember Sam? He’s been trying to get me down to Rhode Island to work in his co-op space. I’m finally taking him up on his offer.”

Thor tapped the paperwork on the edge of his chair, an absent motion that told Steve this conversation wasn’t going to be so easy to wrap up. “And Bucky?”

“Summer’s almost over. Bucky’s back to New York in a week. That’s how it’s always been for us, Thor. I spent the last twenty years of my life here, treading water. I’ve been angry the whole time—about my mom dying, the marina… Bucky. It’s time to let the marina go. I’ve never wanted to spend my whole life working there. _You_ actually want it. You have the money to do something with it. I know you won’t ruin the land. It’s more than most people get, when they’re selling the family business.”

Steve ran a hand through his hair and looked out over the water again. “I love this place. But I’ve needed to get away for a long time. And I never got my chance. If nothing else, these past few weeks with Bucky… It’s shown me I gotta get out of here for a while. Get some room to breathe. Figure my shit out. If I’m lucky enough to be able to do it…” Steve shrugged, feeling a little helpless, at loose ends.

“I’m going to own the whole town, at this rate,” Thor said, sensing the tension and gleefully smashing it. “How does Thorsville sound to you?”

“You know, the Adirondacks are, what, six million acres? Still not big enough for your ego.”

Thor just shrugged, grinning. “I’m good at what I do.”

“Shuck your corn,” Steve said, bending over to pick up a couple ears and chuck one at Thor’s lap. “I’m hungry. Get to work. We can work out the details after the weekend. Let’s just… ignore it, for now.”

“I can wait,” Thor said, peeling back half the green leaves in a single motion, sending corn silk scattering everywhere, lazy strands of it blowing in the breeze, drifting down towards the water.

* * *

The rest of the night was a lovely, chaotic blur. Steve felt light and heavy all at once, knowing he’d unmoored himself from the marina, looking around Thor’s house and seeing three of his oldest friends, laughing, a little too drunk for their age and together in a way they hadn’t been in so long, too long.

Bucky leaned into Steve’s side as they sat out by the firepit, licking sticky trails of homemade vanilla dripping from the ice cream cookie sandwiches Bucky had made. Across the fire, he could see Loki had his feet up in Thor’s lap, wine glass dangling dangerously in his hand. Thor’s hands looked huge on Loki’s slim black leggings. He looked at the golden wedding ring on Thor’s ring finger and thought, _Wow, we’re all getting old. How did we get here?_

But Steve found, for once, he didn’t mean it in a bad way. He wrapped his arm around Bucky’s shoulder, tugging him closer, breathing in citrus and woodsmoke, the gentle wind-down of summer on the breeze, and he didn’t let himself worry about it for just one night.

* * *

“Wake up,” Steve whispered, brushing his lips against the shell of Bucky’s ear. “Come on, time to go.”

Bucky’s whole face scrunched up, eyes cinched tight as he burrowed into Steve’s pillow, curling away from the sunshiney windows. “Go where?” he mumbled. “It’s early.”

But underneath the blankets, he was wiggling into Steve’s hands; Bucky’s whole body was soft and warm and Steve couldn’t help but squeeze his waist, enjoying the little hitch in Bucky’s breath at the pressure. “For a walk. Come on, I made you some tea.”

There was no way to know if it was the tea or the lingering kiss that pulled Bucky out of bed, but he was up and Steve watched while he pulled last night’s shorts over his silky underwear and borrowed a worn out flannel. He barely buttoned it up, letting it hang loose over his chest, cuffed sleeves draped wide over his slender forearms, and before they left the bedroom, Steve pulled Bucky in by the collar, pressing a kiss to Bucky’s neck.

Downstairs, Molly was already waiting by the door, nosing at the leash Steve had left draped over the door knob so he didn’t forget it. “Here,” Steve said, handing over a beat up travel mug. “Your earl grey, milk and honey.”

Bucky took a sip and Steve watched his face soften, memorizing the little smile on Bucky’s gorgeous face.

Outside it was still a little chilly, the sunlight seeming just the slightest bit faded as it poured over the foggy pine trees. Bucky leaned into Steve’s side, and Molly wove her way around them as they took off down the narrow road. “Where are we going?”

Steve took Bucky’s hand in his and squeezed it. “Our spot.”

The walk to the cove was less than an hour; it was quiet in the woods, pavement and gravel giving way to the familiar dirt road, with birds chattering overhead and the wind shivering in the trees. Bucky’s hand was warm inside of Steve’s, and their bodies moved together as they walked along, hips brushing and faces close enough to steal a kiss from time to time. They talked a little, and it was easy for Steve, now, to hear stories about Bucky’s life in the city, and to offer his own stories in return.

“My dad,” Bucky said, sounding smaller than usual, “he’s got Parkinson’s. That’s why he’s retiring by the end of the year. I’m set to be taking over the company.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, because he was, because he knew no matter the relationship between Bucky and his father, there was no denying that a parent’s illness hurt in all kinds of ways, crushing and frustrating by improbable turns. “That’s a big change for you. Finally the big boss.”

“He’s hanging on as hard as he can,” Bucky said, mouth pinched into a fake smile. “It’s going to be a rough transition no matter what he or I do.”

Steve squeezed Bucky’s hand and smiled when Bucky looked over at him. “I can’t make it easier for you, but I can tell you from experience that you’ll get through it. You’ve got Nat. And you’ve got Loki and Thor, and me, even. We all know no one gives more of a shit than you. I’ve seen you working the last few weeks, Buck. If you can’t do it, no one can.”

That, at least, put a small smile on Bucky’s face. “I’m not sure I even _want_ to do it,” he said, in a way that made Steve think Bucky didn’t often let himself think of _not_ being his father’s son. “But it’s family, you know? Don’t really have much of a choice in it.” He bumped his shoulders against Steve’s. “Glad to hear I’ve got your vote of confidence though. At least someone thinks I’m capable.” He grinned up at Steve like he’d said something to laugh at, but it mostly hurt. Steve didn’t know what to say, so he just kissed Bucky’s cheek, high up on the bone, close to his eye, and hoped Bucky knew he wasn’t half as small as his dad made him feel sometimes.

By the time they made it down to the cove, it was brighter and warmer, sadness wicking away like mist under the rising sun. Bucky looked like sin when he sat down on the rocky sand, bare legs stretched out, the collar of his borrowed shirt flung wide around his neck.

“It’s beautiful up here,” Bucky said, knocking his knee into Steve’s. “This time next summer, they’re going to have broken ground. All the steel framing will be up at the event center. It’s going to be totally different.”

“I was upset, a little, when Thor first told me about turning this old camp into some kind of resort. But listening to Thor talk about it, what he wants to do... I’ve come around on it. It’s good money, good jobs. God knows we need it up here.”

“You’ll probably see more business at the marina, too,” Bucky said.

Steve sighed. “I’m selling the marina to Thor,” he admitted.

There was a long, quiet moment, Bucky’s hand going tight on Steve’s thigh before letting go. “What? Are you… really?”

“Yeah,” he said, reaching over to run his fingers through Bucky’s soft hair, brushing through a night’s worth of tangles. “I’ve been running that place for fifteen years, and I don’t even know why. Because I’m stubborn, I guess. It was the only thing I had after Mom died, so… I just stuck around. But I realized, with you up here, it hasn’t made me any better a man. That’s for sure. I was a dick to you when you first got up here.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not blameless in all this, either,” Bucky countered.

“Nah, we were kids. I think there’s plenty of stupid to go around. I realized I don’t even care about that anymore. I just… need to get out of here for a little while. Figure some shit out.”

Bucky tapped his fingers on Steve’s thigh. “You know, you could come down to the city with me. I’ve got the room.”

Steve smiled, and reached over, tipping up Bucky’s chin for a kiss. “Thank you, but no. I’ve got a spot lined up at an artist’s co-op in Providence. I was supposed to go to RISD, remember? This is that. Just… a little later.”

With a sigh, Bucky deflated, curling into Steve, their arms wrapped up tight around each other. Bucky’s face was stuffed into Steve’s shoulder, and after a few minutes, Steve realized Bucky was quietly crying. There was barely any motion, just the hot wet of tears on his t-shirt, the occasional shudder of Bucky’s spine under Steve’s hands.

“I don’t want you to be sad,” Steve whispered into Bucky’s hair. “Please don’t cry.”

It wasn’t surprising that even when crying, Bucky could manage to sound calm, almost put together. “Why does it feel like it’s never our time?”

Steve sighed, almost laughing but he didn’t feel up to it. “I think we both have a lot of shit to figure out. But seeing you again has been one of the best things to happen to me in a long, long time. I don’t think we need to pretend this is it, like it’s going to be another fifteen years of nothing, okay? We’ve got a couple days left. And after that… who knows. It won’t be like when we were kids. You can text me. Call me. Email me. You could even come see me, if you want.”

Sighing, Bucky untangled himself from Steve just enough to swipe at his eyes with his shirt sleeve, and Steve could see the way his face had gone all pink and sad, mouth pinched up tight and eyes red and itchy looking. “You know, my dad sent me up here to get my head on straight before we announce that he’s retiring. I don’t think it worked out too well.”

“I’m not touching that with a ten foot pole,” Steve said, honestly. “Your dad’s a dick. I’m sorry he’s sick, but he makes you miserable. He always has.”

That, at least, made Bucky laugh, even if it was a raspy, tired sound.

“What if we could make it work, this time,” Bucky said. “What if we really, really tried.”

There was something sweet, optimistic, so like the dumb, hopeful teenagers they’d been, in Bucky’s reasoning, and Steve couldn’t help but duck his head and kiss Bucky. It was short and almost chaste, Bucky’s warm mouth lovely with honey and tea, all softly parting lips and a quiet sigh. Steve wanted to agree with Bucky—he wanted to fling common sense out into the water and dive into this heart first and trusting.

But Steve couldn’t do that to either of them; not again.

“I don’t think we should make any kinds of promises we can’t keep, Bucky.” Steve could see the flash of _something_ in Bucky’s eyes, something sharp and argumentative, so he pushed on ahead. “You know I’m right. Look how much we hurt each other before. Let’s just… wait until after summer.”

“We only ever get summers,” Bucky mumbled.

“I used to think that,” Steve said. “It doesn’t have to be like that. Everything’s changing. It’s good, I can promise you that, at least.”

Bucky was quiet for a moment. “Providence?” he asked.

“Providence.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a teeny note to say: 
> 
> a) thank you so much for your support for this fic! We've read and cherished and and every comment, and we're so grateful for all your lovely words and encouragement.
> 
> b) we may need a little extra time to get the final chapter just right, but it will definitely be up by the 19th. Otherwise, we'd have to kick ourselves out of our own bang, and wouldn't that be awkward?


	6. can I come home for the summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Providence? Providence.

Seemed like the late summer sun shone straight into Bucky’s eyes the whole way back to the city, drilling a dull headache into the space behind them that was the perfect complement to the hollow sort of heaviness he’d been carrying around since Steve left for Providence the day before.

It was a strange feeling, watching Steve leave the lake before him. A role reversal he wasn’t prepared for, even if he knew he deserved it after all those years of taking Steve and their summers for granted. It was only fair that he got to experience it, to know how much it hurt to watch the one you loved drive off to something bigger and better, while you only had your same, unsatisfactory life to go back to.

Because with every mile closer to the city, he felt a heaviness settle itself back into his bones. It was a weight he’d only just come to realize he had always carried, a dull pain so constant it was only noticeable in its absence. The drive home felt like shuffling his feet toward a precipice with a weight strapped to his back. He wasn’t sure if he’d have the strength to pitch it over the edge, or if he’d have to figure out how to live with it weighing him down.

* * *

His apartment felt a lot like the rental house did. Cold and efficient, and so eerily silent without even the distant sounds of the lake lapping at the dock, or a breeze ruffling the big oak outside the kitchen window to soften it. As he walked through the front room to the hallway, it struck him how little of himself was there, beyond some mail on the kitchen island and the clothes he’d left strewn across his bed while packing in a flurry, now folded in a neat pile by the housekeeper who snuck in and out silently once a week. It was so sterile and anonymous, and all at once Bucky felt homesick for Steve’s battered leather couch with the busted seams, and stray dog toys stuck between the cushions.

He sat heavily on the end of his bed and gave in to the urge he’d been fighting all day, even if part of him screamed it was too soon, too desperate and needy to call after only a couple of days apart. But he didn’t want to play those games with Steve. He wasn’t going to hide any bit of himself from Steve this time around.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve answered after a few rings. His voice was bright, cutting through the noise of a crowd in the background.

“Hi—sorry—did I catch you at a bad time?” Bucky cleared his throat, feeling stupid for calling.

The noise receded just a bit, as though Steve had walked a few paces away. “I’m out with Sam and some of the folks from the co-op. There’s this dive bar run by this grumpy asshole with an eyepatch—he says he lost in a dart game, but...”

Bucky, laid back on the bed and closed his eyes, letting Steve’s voice wash over him. He sounded lighter, happier than he had even a couple days ago. “You sound good,” he said when Steve paused.

He could hear the small smile in Steve’s voice, picture the way he’d probably ducked his head and shrugged. “Yeah, I think this is going to be good for me.”

“I’m really glad you got to do this, Steve,” Bucky said. Because it was true, and because he didn’t want to give even a moment’s attention to the envy that was welling up in him.

“Yeah, me too,” Steve said. “Are you home now?”

Bucky sighed. “Yeah. Feels weird.”

“Have you figured out what you’re going to do?” he asked gently. Bucky could hear his restraint through the phone, and smiled gratefully. This was Steve trying not to push.

“I have a meeting on the calendar tomorrow morning so….hopefully I figure that out between now and then.” He laughed hollowly, his stomach twisting with anticipation and anger and the ever present anxiety that came with dealing with his father.

“Whatever you decide, I’m behind you one hundred percent, Buck,” Steve said. “I just want you to be happy.”

“Me too,” Bucky said thickly, emotion clogging his throat. “I just gotta figure out what that means for me.”

“You will, honey,” Steve said, his voice so full of unwavering conviction that Bucky’s eyes welled with unbidden tears. He had someone in his corner now, someone who knew all the scared, stupid little pieces of him, who had seen all his fault lines and had traced the grooves of them with gentle hands, and still believed in him. It was a hell of a thing. It was a hell of a thing to have lost that and found it again, after everything.

“I hope so.”

“I know it,” Steve said. And then, “I’ve got to go back in now but I—I miss you. Funny how I went fifteen years without you, and now even a day feels weird.”

Bucky’s laugh was watery and fond, relief surging through him that Steve was in the same boat. “I miss you too. Have fun with your friends.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Steve said drily, and Bucky felt himself echoing the grin evident in his voice. “Call me tomorrow after everything, okay?”

“Okay,” he said. He didn’t know how to end a call with Steve. It was a novelty they’d so rarely gotten to experience before, and now—there were words on the tip of his tongue he wasn’t quite ready to set free. “Night, Steve.”

He laid there for the rest of the night, phone still clutched in his hand as he stared at the blank ceiling and tried to figure out what the hell he was going to do.

* * *

Walking into the office the next morning felt surreal. He’d never taken more than a few days off before, and after nearly a month away it felt as though he was seeing it through entirely new eyes, his perspective irrevocably skewed. How had he never picked up on how tense the atmosphere was, even at eight in the morning? How had he missed the strained smiles and the way voices trailed off into whispers when he walked down the hall?

How had he never realized how much he hated the way this place made him feel?

His phone buzzed in his pocket just as he reached his father’s office, giving him an excuse to pause outside the door and take a fortifying breath.

 **Steve:** Sketching a new piece this morning. What do you think?

There was a photo attached. He was clearly drawing at a coffee shop near the co-op, his sketchbook propped on a small wrought-iron table with a blurry street captured in the background. The sketch itself made Bucky grin and blush, despite the sick weight in his gut.

 **Bucky:** That ass is too big to be mine

 **Steve:** I’ve studied your ass very closely, and I think I’m qualified to say this is an accurate rendering

 **Bucky:** Maybe you need another look, then

 **Steve:** Maybe you should send me a pic. Just for comparison.

Bucky’s belly clutched at the thought, mind immediately going to all the pretty lacy things he had in his drawer, laying there untouched for more months than he could count.

 **Bucky:** Ask me again later, when I’m not standing outside my dad’s office

 **Steve:** Now we both have something to look forward to. Good luck, honey.

Bucky exhaled slowly, and slid his phone back into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, feeling as though he carried a talisman with him as he stepped into his father’s office. It was a large corner suite, appointed in rich, masculine leathers and dark woods, the effect warmer than any word he’d ever spoken to Bucky. Certainly warmer than his expression now as he looked Bucky over critically, no doubt noting that he needed a haircut, and the way the faint sunburn across his nose brought his freckles into sharp relief. How undignified of him to appear as though he’d ever encountered the sun anywhere but through his office windows.

But, “I trust everything went well with the Odinson project?” was all he said.

Bucky nodded, sliding into one of the guest chairs to relieve his trembling legs. “As usual. They’re on track to be fully operational by second quarter.”

George nodded. “I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that the Insight ship has been righted. Natasha has done a wonderful job stepping into your shoes, as I suspected.”

Bucky inclined his head. “She said as much, and I expected nothing less from her. Frankly, she should have been in my shoes long before now.”

His father smirked. “I see the time away has given you some better perspective on my decision. Good to see it. Now you can focus on what’s important.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Bucky said smoothly—more smoothly than he felt. His heart was in his throat when he said, “with that in mind, I am tendering my resignation. Effective immediately.” He handed over his resignation letter. Five lines of black on a single page of cream-colored linen paper he’d typed at three that morning, fingers shaking on the keys and clammy with cold sweat as he typed and deleted the same words over and over.

_It is with regret that I must tender my resignation to Barnes International..._

George didn’t bother to look at it; he merely dropped it into the wastebasket beside him and sighed. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is a disappointing show of petulance, even from you, James.”

Bucky grit his teeth. He would not take the bait. “It’s clear to me that you don’t respect me, my skills, or my judgment. I believe it’s in the company’s best interest, and my own, for you to find a replacement better-suited to your needs.”

“Respect has nothing to do with it. You’re a Barnes—”

“Maybe in name, but never in practice. Not in your eyes,” Bucky snapped, unable to hold the words back. It was a relief to throw that door open, let the words spill out from behind his clenched teeth.

George leaned his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers, considering Bucky over his fingertips. “You’ve always had far too much of your mother in you, despite my best efforts.”

“Well, you drove her away too. I assumed you’d be used to this.” Bucky could have laughed at the expression on George’s face, the way his head snapped back as though he’d been struck; he was as surprised as his father that he’d finally found the courage to say it out loud.

George’s mouth worked, his expression pinched and the barest flush working its way up his neck. “Your mother was a whore. I did my best to keep you from following in her footsteps,” he hissed.

Bucky smiled through the sick rage that roiled in his gut. “Oh, speaking of—you didn’t ask, but I had a great time at the lake. Guess who I ran into?” He didn’t give him a chance to answer. “Steve Rogers. Remember him?”

“I’m surprised he didn’t leave that little town the first chance he got. Last I heard he was going to some art school. Some people have no real ambition, I suppose.” He narrowed his eyes. “Is this nonsense his influence?”

“Depends.” Bucky leaned forward, bracing his clammy hands on the gleaming mahogany desk, and looked his father straight in the eye with a boldness that was only half bravado. “Did you fuck with us?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” George leaned back, his leather chair creaking. “Is this really what you’ve been reduced to, James? Holding onto slights from the trash who should have been beneath your notice to begin with?”

“Don’t call him that,” Bucky gritted out. “Answer my question—did you do something?”

George waved a dismissive hand. “I am not responsible for all the boys who lost interest in you over the years. If he cut you off, perhaps you need to reflect on why. I’m sure it was for the best, in any case.”

That was all the confirmation Bucky needed, when he’d never mentioned the specifics to his father. Everything inside him deflated, all the rage and fear leaking out of him in one steady stream, until he was empty of everything but his exhaustion. “Why?” he asked hoarsely. “For once just be honest with me.”

His father pressed his lips into a thin line, cold and composed even in this. “He was a bad influence on you then, and I see is still determined to drag you down with him now. If I’m to have a gay son, he will at least be selective about the men he chooses to associate with. I will not have the Barnes name dragged into the mud along with you.”

Bucky wished his father would for once raise his voice, yell at him or pound his fist. That he would show even a flicker of emotion other than cold disdain for him. It might have made it easier to bear.

Bucky rose to his feet, feeling lightheaded and leaden all at once. Tunnel vision and a tinny ring in his ears as he said, “Like I said, it’s in the company’s best interest to find someone else. I’d hate to drag it down into the distasteful gay mud with me.”

“Don’t twist my words, James. This is your hangup, not mine. Walking away is not an option. You’re a Barnes, this is your legacy.”

“If this is my legacy, I don’t want it,” Bucky said, surprised at how firm and clear his voice was, even as it felt as though he was speaking the words from underwater. “I won’t let myself end up like you.”

His father spluttered and stood, finally showing some emotion. “You would walk away from me now,” he hissed, holding up a hand that shook with more than just emotion. Even now, he refused to say the words out loud, to lower himself by admitting to a weakness—even one he’d had no way of preventing.

“Yes,” Bucky said simply, too exhausted to hide the way his voice shook. “I can’t do this anymore. You’ve taken my whole life from me, I can’t let you have the rest of it too.”

George scoffed. “I’ll cut you off completely. You won’t see a cent from me, or the company.” He jabbed a bony finger into the desk to emphasize his point.

“Take your money with you when you die, I don’t want it,” Bucky said tiredly. “Let the company die with you too—it’s the only thing you’ve ever loved, it might as well be buried with you.”

He walked out of his father’s office for the last time, feet steady even as everything inside him felt shaken loose, unmoored and out of place. He was numb, cold down to his bones. But he’d done it. He’d cut himself loose.

He didn’t know if he felt any lighter, but he felt free.

* * *

He poked his head into Nat’s office on his way out the door, something like relief uncoiling in his stomach when she smirked at him from behind her desk. “Look at you, Mr. Summer Glow. Haven’t heard from you in a couple days, I was about to send out the coast guard.”

He shrugged. “Figured you could use a break from me too.”

She cocked her head, assessing him. She was always far too shrewd for his comfort. “How was the lake?”

“The lake was good. I think I needed it.” He couldn’t help the small, secret smile that tugged at the corner of his lips.

“You look different. Relaxed? I didn’t know you could do that, legally speaking.”

He laughed, surprised and grateful at how easy it was to slip back into this rhythm with her. “Yeah well, it’s amazing what happens when you get away from this place for a few weeks.”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said primly.

“Oh fuck off, you’ve still got your tan from Barcelona.”

She grinned. “Next time I’m taking three weeks.”

His smile stuttered. There wouldn’t be a next time, at least not one that involved him approving PTO. “You want to go grab some coffee?”

“Sure,” she said. “Give me thirty? I’ve got a call in a second.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

* * *

“How do you feel?” Steve asked.

Bucky ran his thumbnail along a groove in the wooden table outside the coffee shop. “I don’t know yet.”

Steve huffed a frustrated sigh and Bucky could practically see him, standing with one hand on his hip, dragging his hand through his over-long hair. “I know it’s not my place to say, but you’re better off without him, Buck. The only thing he’s ever given you is a lifetime of emotional abuse. Being your dad doesn’t excuse that. Nothing does.”

“I know,” Bucky said quietly. Because he did. He’d come to that realization at about two-thirty that morning, clarity barreling into him like a well-placed punch. What was he holding onto? All that was left were the skeletal remains of a hope that died long ago. He’d just been too stubborn, too idealistic to bury it.

“I don’t regret it. Not yet, anyway. I just….this is the only thing I’ve ever done—the only thing I’ve ever _thought_ about doing. What now?”

“What do you want to do?” Steve asked. “What makes you happy?”

 _You_ , Bucky wanted to say. But he knew that wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t be enough for him in the long run, and it wouldn’t be enough for Steve. Steve deserved to have someone fully-formed, capable of functioning on his own. If they were going to make things work, they both needed to come to the table knowing they could stand on their own if they needed to. And Bucky wasn’t there yet. “Guess I’ve got nothing but time to figure it out, now.”

* * *

He watched Nat walking toward him, on her phone while she wove through the midtown crowd, her stride longer and more confident than it had any business being on someone so petite. She’d removed her blazer, her toned arms golden and bare in her sleeveless black blouse, red hair perfectly curled and bouncing against her shoulders with every step. She was a perfectly put together predator, honed steel hidden within an attractive package, and not for the first time he wondered what his life would have been like if he’d felt even a molecule of attraction to her.

He wouldn’t have survived long, probably. She was made for sterner stuff than him.

“Hey,” she said, slipping into the chair across from him and sliding her sunglasses on top of her head, and dragging his cup of coffee over to her side of the table. She took a sip and made a face. “Your taste in coffee is literally the only butch thing about you.”

“Coffee's for fuel, not for enjoyment.”

“I need you to do me a favor and bring this up to your therapist next time. There’s a lot to unpack there.” She wrinkled her nose and slid the cup back to him.

He couldn’t help but laugh. He was going to miss her so much. “Well, on a related note—I need to tell you something.”

“Oh boy,” she said, arching a questioning eyebrow.

“I wanted you to hear it from me first.” He took a deep breath. “I tendered my resignation this morning.” A little electric frisson of _something_ coursed through him when he said the words aloud. He couldn’t tell if it was excitement or anxiety, but he figured both were appropriate.

Her face went carefully blank. “Is this about Insight?”

He shook his head. “No—or at least, not in the way you mean.” He worked up a reassuring smile for her.

“I _knew_ he did that just to screw with you, what a fucking asshole. I should have—”

He held up a hand. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault, and our fucked up family issues aren’t something that should affect the way you do your job. I know you’re going to kill it with this project, and it’ll be the first of many. Frankly you should have taken on your own client list a long time ago, and if it weren’t for our archaic corporate structure, you’d have been running the whole show by now.”

She rolled her eyes, but he could tell she was pleased. “I don’t think I’m ready for that _quite_ yet, but you’re not wrong.” She paused. “So why are you leaving, then?”

There were a million answers to that. Because he wasn’t sure why he’d ever been there in the first place. Because for once, he wanted to choose his own path. Because he couldn’t stand to spend another second under his father’s thumb. “I guess because being good at something isn’t enough if it still makes you miserable.”

She nodded, as though she’d expected it. “What are you going to do?”

“I have no fucking idea,” he said with a faint laugh. “I’m terrified. It wouldn’t surprise me if I only last a week before I’m banging on your door, asking you to put me to work.”

She smiled wryly. “Well, I guess I don’t have to feel guilty about interviewing at Stark last week.”

He made a face. “Oh no, you should absolutely feel guilty about that. Go work for someone who at least has taste in the buildings he designs.” He shook his head. “You should open your own firm. You’ve got the talent and the connections. Half of our clients would follow you.”

She flicked a hand. “I mean, that’s the goal. Eventually. I don’t know if you know what non-Barneses salaries look like, but we don’t exactly make enough for all that.”

“I’d back you,” he said without thinking. It was impulsive, but...he was allowed to be impulsive now. He could do whatever he wanted. “If it’s something you’d really consider, I’d give you the capital to start. Be like a silent partner or whatever.”

She narrowed her eyes. “How silent?”

“Literally non-existent.” The last thing he wanted to do was get caught up in something that was only one step removed from where he’d started.

“I’ll think about it,” she said. “In the meantime, I’m going to order breakfast and you’re going to tell me exactly how satisfying it was to tell your dickhole dad where to shove it.”

* * *

“I think I might take some classes,” Bucky said over brunch one afternoon. He was on his third bloody mary—because that was a thing you could do when you didn’t have weekend conference calls or contracts to review before your Monday morning conference calls—which made saying the words out loud feel slightly less ridiculous.

“Sounds horrible,” Loki said. “Although I suppose a nerd like you needs all that structure and whatnot.”

“Coming from the person who has three random degrees they don’t even use.”

Loki waved a black polish-tipped hand. “Actually, this will be good for you. You should take a philosophy class. God knows you could use a little nihilism in your life.”

Bucky threw his last bite of croissant at him. But later—once he’d slept off those three bloody marys—he registered for five classes, none of them having anything to do with the business he’d dedicated his life to—or each other, for that matter.

* * *

_FROM: Steve Rogers <sgr.art@gmail.com>_

_TO: Bucky Barnes <jbb0310@protonmail.com>_

_DATE: November 10_

_SUBJECT: RE: re: re: re:_

_It snowed for the first time last night. It was so cold Molly burrowed her way under the blankets with me, and we watched it come down through the window together. Made me realize I’ve never seen you in the winter. Do you even own a pair of pants? Very concerning._

_What are your Thanksgiving plans? Sam is wrangling all of us into a kind of potluck. God knows what these kids will bring, but at least Sam’s taking care of the bird. I’ve been assigned rolls. I can’t tell if I should be offended? But I’ve decided I’m going to make the best goddamn rolls anyone’s ever had. None of that store bought shit. I’m going full Barefoot Contessa._

_Unrelated: do you know how to make bread?_

_Hope your midterm prep is going well. My eyes glazed over a little when you were talking about your physics project the other night, but you sounded very excited and cute. Send me photos when you’re done!_

_I miss you. Wish it was you under these covers with me instead of my smelly dog. (I guess we both know that’s a lie, I wish it was you AND my smelly dog.)_

_xxoo,_

_Steve_

_P.S. re: our last skype—check your mail tomorrow. :)_

_—_

_FROM: Bucky Barnes <jbb0310@protonmail.com>_

_TO: Steve Rogers <sgr.art@gmail.com>_

_DATE: November 11_

_SUBJECT: RE: RE: re: re: re:_

_ATTACHMENT: IMG_57638.jpg, IMG_5739.jpg_

_It’s snowing here too, although nothing much is sticking yet. Just gray slush so far. I bet it looks way prettier up by you. And for your information, yes I do own pants. I’m wearing some right now. See attached photos for proof. :)_

_I’m going up to Thor and Loki’s cabin for Thanksgiving. It’ll give me a chance to swing by and see the progress they’ve made on the resort on my way up. Anything you want me to check in on at the house while I’m there? I’ll give Doris and Mae your love. Maybe I’ll even get some free pie out of it now that Mae doesn’t hate my guts on sight. The Rogers stamp of approval is so powerful._

_Why am I not surprised you’re making Spite Bread for Thanksgiving. I hope you can picture my shocked face. I have not made bread, but I trust you and the Barefoot Contessa can get through this together. Also I will require video evidence of the process._

_A little over a month and then I’m free! This semester has been really fun, but I’m ready for a break. It’s been a long time since I had to work my brain in this many different directions. Feels good though, just trying stuff out with no real goal in mind. Never really got to do that before, you know? Everything was for something. I think I’m kind of ready to find a direction, though. I can only coast for so long. I’ve got some ideas, but I’m still thinking them through._

_I miss you too. It’s going to be so weird to be at the lake without you. Maybe we can get together for Christmas?_

_Give that sweet girl a kiss from me. I told her to do the same. (Almost as good, right?)_

_< 3333,_

_Bucky_

* * *

His phone rang not even five minutes after hitting send. He’d sent him a photo of himself posing with his best angles in his comfy yoga pants….and then a little something else. As a treat. “I see you received my email.”

“Oh, was there an actual message? I couldn’t see anything beyond you face down, ass up in those little panties. Jesus _christ_ , Barnes.”

He laughed, even as the blush crept up his neck. Why he felt no shame taking and sending those photos but got squirmy when Steve mentioned them, he’d never understand. “Don’t send me stuff if you’re not prepared for me to show them off.”

“You gotta warn a guy so he _can_ be prepared. I gotta go to work in a minute. Jesus.” He blew out a breath, as though he were really struggling.

“Aw, poor baby,” Bucky snickered. It served Steve right after he’d send a _video_ to Bucky during his study group the week before. “I bet you could fix yourself right up in just a moment if you really put your mind to it.”

“I refuse to disrespect that ass with a quick jerk over the john. I need to light some candles, put on some music. Really romance it.”

“You are such a fucking nerd.” Bucky laughed, feeling fond and ridiculous all at once. They hadn’t seen each other since the end of August, but every day Steve found a way to tug on that thread that tied them together, to let Bucky know he was thinking about him, that he was wanted. And Bucky made it a point to do the same. The advances in technology since they were kids definitely helped, but more than anything it was their commitment to making it work. The future was still uncertain, but no matter what happened between them, they wouldn’t unravel because they didn’t know how to let the other know how much they meant this time.

“Says the physics nerd.”

“Listen, one of us has to be good at math.”

“I’m great at math!” Steve said indignantly.

“Steven,” Bucky giggled. “You have calculated the tip on your phone every single time I’ve eaten out with you. Even at the ice cream shop!”

“I just want to make sure I’m not short-changing anyone!”

“You’re right, of course. It’s your generosity and not your inability to calculate twenty percent in your head.”

“Shut up, Barnes,” he muttered, and Bucky could hear the grin in his voice. “So, you gonna come spend Christmas with me or what?”

“You want me to?” Bucky couldn’t help the way his heart leapt into his throat at the prospect.

“Yeah, I want you to,” Steve said simply. “We’re having a gallery showing the week before, if you think you can make it.” There was a shy note in his voice that made Bucky’s heart squeeze.

“Why didn’t you tell me! What’s the date?” he asked, pulling up his calendar. As long as it didn’t interfere with finals—

“The eighteenth?”

“Shit.” Bucky deflated. “That’s the day of my last final. Fuck.” He felt a little like crying.

“Hey, no worries,” Steve said gently. “You can see it all when you get here. I’ll give you a private showing.” The waggly eyebrows were heavily implied. “And that way you don’t have to see me holding back the anxiety barf the whole night.”

“I’m really sorry, I would have loved to be there.”

“I know, Buck,” Steve said gently. “Next time.”

Bucky sighed. “Next time.” Because there _would_ be a next time.

“Okay, I gotta get to work. You going to be around later if I need some help romancing?”

“I’m meeting Nat for dinner, but should be home by the time you get off.”

“Better be home _before_ I get off.” Steve snickered at himself.

“You are literally a twelve year old.”

“You loved me when I was twelve too, don’t try to deny it Barnes.”

Bucky’s heart beat an SOS against his ribs. “Uh, yeah. I did—I do.”

Steve laughed self-consciously. “Okay we’re going to try that again when I’m not running late for work. Talk to you tonight, Buck.”

“Yeah—tonight. Bye.” Bucky dropped his phone into his lap and stared out the window, smiling to himself for a long moment.

He had to make it to that art show.

* * *

_FROM: Bucky Barnes <jbb0310@protonmail.com>_

_TO: Bruce Banner <bbanner@bmcc.cuny.edu>_

_DATE: November 11_

_SUBJECT: PHY 240 Final - 12/18_

_Professor Banner,_

_I am reaching out to see if it would be possible for me to take the physics 240 final prior to the 18th. I have an important out of state engagement I cannot miss, and unfortunately will have to drop the class if it is not possible to sit the final on another date._

_Please let me know what options, if any, are available._

_Best,_

_Bucky Barnes_

* * *

_FROM: Bruce Banner <bbanner@bmcc.cuny.edu>_

_TO: Bucky Barnes <jbb0310@protonmail.com>_

_DATE: November 14_

_SUBJECT: re: PHY 240 Final - 12/18_

_Bucky,_

_I don’t normally allow students to take the final on any day but the one scheduled. Can I ask what the engagement is, and why it is important enough to lose eight weeks of work?_

* * *

_FROM: Bucky Barnes <jbb0310@protonmail.com>_

_TO: Bruce Banner <bbanner@bmcc.cuny.edu>_

_DATE: November 14_

_SUBJECT: re: PHY 240 Final - 12/18_

_Professor Banner,_

_My best friend and the man I’ve been in love with my whole life is having his first gallery showing on the 18th, and not to be dramatic but I would rather do anything—even take your class again next semester—than miss it. I understand this may seem frivolous to you, but I have been made to choose duty before joy too many times in the past to allow it to happen to me again._

_I’ve really enjoyed your class, and completely understand if there’s no leeway on the final date. I look forward to seeing you again next semester._

_Best, Bucky_

* * *

_FROM: Bruce Banner <bbanner@bmcc.cuny.edu>_

_TO: Bucky Barnes <jbb0310@protonmail.com>_

_DATE: November 14_

_SUBJECT: re: PHY 240 Final - 12/18_

_Bucky,_

_Far be it from me to prevent Grand Unification. (Forgive my horrible physics joke - we have so few opportunities to use them.) I’ll make an exception for you this one time, provided you keep it between us. Be prepared to sit the final on the 17th at 3pm._

* * *

“Am I setting myself up for a horrible awkward moment if I surprise Steve at his art show?” Bucky blurted out when Loki answered the phone.

“I see you’ve taken my advice and started watching Hallmark Christmas movies, finally,” Loki said. “First of all, what the fuck. He’s got enough pieces for a whole show and we haven’t even gotten a preview to take our pick? He _will_ be hearing from my lawyer.”

“Lo, focus please. On me, and not your filthy art collection, preferably.”

“Me, me, me. That’s all I get from you. What about _my_ needs. What about that fact that my _HORRIBLE HUSBAND_ ,” he yelled, clearly for Thor’s benefit, “has decided to take up fucking knitting. _Knitting_ , Bucky. The unsexiest of all hobbies. Could he not do something useful, like throwing an axe around shirtless? I don’t ask for much.”

“Is he knitting something for you, at least?”

“I would stab him if he tried. What am I, a peasant? He’s currently knitting you a hat. Be prepared to be horrified when you get here next week. It’s yellow.”

“Can’t wait,” Bucky said drily. “Can we get back to my actual problem?”

“You do not have an actual problem. What you have are several neuroses,” Loki said. “Why do you want to surprise him instead of just telling him you’re able to make it?”

“Because I don’t want to deal with him feeling guilty about pushing my final up,” Bucky said. “And because it feels kind of grand gesture-y?”

“God, you’re a romantic.” Loki sighed. “You’re lucky Steve is the same. Yes, surprise him if you want. The most awkward thing that could happen is him having his dirty underwear strewn across his apartment.”

“But what if he thinks it’s an invasion of privacy or crossing a boundary or something?” Bucky twisted a curl between his fingers imagining Steve’s shocked expression at seeing Bucky where he wasn’t supposed to be. He could picture it all too clearly—he’d see it just a few months ago at the diner.

“I’m going to hang up on you now. He’s revoltingly in love with you, please shut up.”

 _“Is that Bucky?_ ” Thor boomed in the background.

“What gave it away?” Loki asked drolly.

“ _Steve being revolting_ ,” Thor answered, his voice much closer as he presumably wrestled the phone out of Loki’s hand. “Bucky, what size is your head?”

“Excuse me?”

“For your hat! Measure your head and get back to me.”

“Uh, sure. Will do.”

“You will need it when you visit Steve for Christmas.”

“Oh,” Bucky said, strangely touched. “Thank you, Thor.”

* * *

At some point Bucky probably needed to ask himself if the universe was trying to tell him something. He’d woken up that morning to heavy freezing rain that was slated to continue for the rest of the weekend. Knowing what Newark was like on a normal day, let alone the last Friday before Christmas, let alone the last Friday before Christmas during a storm, he got to the airport more than two hours ahead of his flight. Only to learn that it was delayed. And then

delayed again. And again. And then again.

No problem, he thought. It’s only a four hour train ride. I’ve got plenty of time.

And he had. Before they’d pulled into the New Haven station, the last stop before Providence, and found it had been snowing so hard that the doors and stairs were frozen shut and had to be de-iced before letting anyone off or on.

He spent the last leg of the trip sick with nerves, checking his watch every four seconds to see if, by some Christmas miracle, they had traveled the hour and a half distance in the forty-seven minutes he had before Steve’s show started.

They did not.

His initial plan had involved getting into Providence early enough that they’d have some time to themselves before Steve’s show. He’d imagined surprising Steve at his apartment, and jumping him immediately. Strictly as a stress release for Steve before his show, because Bucky Barnes was a giver.

Unfortunately, expectation and reality did not align. He arrived at the gallery more than an hour after the doors opened, dripping snow from his parka and the ridiculously bright yellow pom-pom beanie from Thor. He felt gauche and horribly out of place as he wove his way through groups of well-cut suits and bright dresses, catching the glint of diamonds on ears and fingers out of the corner of his eye as he scanned the room for Steve. He should have been immediately recognizable, a shock of blond standing a head taller than anyone else in the room, but he was nowhere to be seen.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and Bucky didn’t bother pulling it out to check. He gave the gallery one last sweep to make sure he hadn’t missed Steve skulking in some quiet corner, and then slipped out the back door onto the small covered patio outside. Steve stood at the far end, phone at his ear, looking out at the empty street.

Bucky grinned to himself and pulled out his phone. “Hi,” he answered quietly.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve said, and Bucky watched his shoulders relax.

“Aren’t you supposed to be showing off the goods to big time art snobs right now?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, huffing a laugh that burst into a white cloud of mist in front of his face. “Just needed a breather from the crowd, wanted to check in. Your flight still on track to get in tomorrow morning?”

“Yep, I will definitely be there in the morning,” Bucky said, creeping closer until he stood right behind Steve. He hung up and pocketed his phone. “Might even be persuaded to make you a kale smoothie for breakfast if you ask real nice.”

Steve whipped around, face doing something complicated. Shock, excitement, relief flickered as he took Bucky in. “What?” he said blankly, phone still pressed to his ear.

“Surprise,” Bucky giggled, stepping forward and cupping Steve’s still-gaping face in his hands. He leaned up to kiss him, lips cold but Steve’s body a delicious wall of warmth as he yanked him closer.

“What about your final?” Steve murmured against his mouth, neither of them able to pull away.

“I didn’t want to miss this,” Bucky said, brushing his mouth over Steve’s again and again, taking in the taste and the smell of him, the warmth of him sharp and immediate. “It’s important to you, and I’ve already missed too many of your important moments. I want to be here for all the rest.”

“Buck,” Steve breathed, his name full of everything they hadn’t yet been brave enough to say.

Because he was perilously close to tears, Bucky stepped back and took Steve’s hand. “Come on, show me your stuff.”

Steve led him through the room, pausing to show Bucky the wall of abstract paintings in tones of muted reds and oranges and pinks, that Bucky realized belatedly were women’s figures, hands and heads and sex limned in flickering warm light. “Wanda’s,” Steve said, the pride evident in his voice. “And this is Sam’s work.” He turned Bucky toward the display of sculpture, nude men fashioned from marble and steel, bodies twisted together until they were indistinguishable from one another, but still somehow gave the impression of being whole.

“And here’s me,” Steve said, a sheepish note to his voice. “Or you, I guess.”

There was an entire wall of him. His hand, gripping rumpled sheets, his scar in sharp relief, the early morning light casting the line of his forearm in silver. His face from the nose down, red swollen mouth wrapped around two of Steve’s fingers, his chest flushed and wet. His nipple, worked pink from Steve’s mouth, Steve’s rough hand gripping the meat of his chest in the foreground. The arch of his sweat-slicked back. The indent of Steve’s fingers on his bruised thigh. The full length of Bucky’s body, the focus on his splayed, flushed thighs, his cock soft and vulnerable above his wet, pink hole—and out of focus, a kiss. Steve’s golden head bent over his, their hands intertwined between them.

Bucky had known, of course, the focus of Steve’s exhibition. But seeing it now, taking up an entire wall in beautiful, vibrant color—it stole his breath. All the secret, hidden pieces of him were on display, coaxed into view by gentle, reverent hands. There was tenderness in every line, in their soft mouths and their clutching hands; there was desperation in the bright strokes of silvery sweat on golden limbs, and longing in the deep shadows cast in the grooves of their bodies.

There was love.

Steve loved him. Steve had loved him as a boy, in those sun-drenched summers when they’d had nothing to fear but September, when their love had been as idealistic and naive as their hope. And Steve loved him now. Steve, who Bucky had hurt beyond measure—he looked at him now with eyes wide open, Bucky’s fault and cracks in full view, and he saw him like _this_.

The truth of it never stopped hurting. It seized his heart and stole his breath, caught his ribs in its fist and squeezed until he had no choice but to look it in its face and believe.

“What do you think?” Steve asked quietly, lips brushing Bucky’s ear.

“I love you,” Bucky said, the only words he had.

Steve exhaled as though Bucky’s whisper had punched a hole through him. Maybe it hurt him too.

* * *

Later, they lay curled up in Steve’s bed, watching the snowfall wrapped in thick blankets and each other, with Molly curled at their feet. It was so quiet, only Steve’s steady breaths, and the soft sounds of the lazy kisses he dropped along Bucky’s bare shoulder.

“You know, summer’s always been ours,” Bucky said, squeezing Steve’s hand against his chest. “But I could get used to winter, too.”

Steve paused, and Bucky’s heart stopped with him. He held his breath, waiting—

“Fall might be nice though,” Steve said casually, his mouth curling against Bucky’s shoulder when he exhaled.

“I’m kind of partial to spring,” Bucky said, rolling over so he could see Steve’s face. It was soft and fond, and full of a guarded kind of hope. “I know you said we shouldn’t make promises we can’t keep, but I—I’m ready for more. If you are.”

“We’ve still got a lot to figure out,” Steve said gently, brushing a knuckle along Bucky’s cheekbone. “I don’t know what comes next for me, and—”

“Me neither,” Bucky said in a rush. “I just—I know what’s important. And it’s not where I live or what I do. It’s who I decide to be, and who I decide to be with. I want to be with you, Steve. Whatever else comes next, I want to do it with you.” He swallowed hard, searching Steve’s face for understanding. “We missed out on a whole lot of life with each other. I don’t want to miss anything else. This is where I want to be, if you want it too.”

“I’ve wanted you my whole life, Buck,” Steve said hoarsely.

“Me too,” Bucky whispered. “This is what matters. You and me. We’ll figure the rest out as it comes.”

“Okay,” Steve said, laughing a little as he bent to kiss Bucky’s mouth. “You and me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It may be cheesy to say, but yes, they do go home for the summer, up to the red camp on the lake Steve grew up in, and, in one place or another, year after year, they live happily ever after.
> 
> Thank you for reading our story. We hope you liked it! And most importantly, thank you to fadefilter, for every beautiful piece of art in this story. This story wouldn't be the same with out you <3
> 
> From Nabu/Fadefilter: Thank you everyone for the wonderful comments about my art. I appreciate them and I am very glad all of you enjoyed this fic as much as I do!! Cora and Steeb wrote such a beautiful story that inspires me so much and I am thankful to be able to draw for it <3

**Author's Note:**

> [corarochester on twitter](https://twitter.com/corarochester)  
> [steebadore on twitter](https://twitter.com/steebadore)  
> [fadefilter on twitter](https://twitter.com/fadefilter)  
>   
> Story title & chapter titles from the song ["For the Summer" by Ray LaMontagne](https://youtu.be/UAJM0Jgir4I)


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